Posts Tagged ‘politics’
Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Our Rumbling Nation
February 27, 2017
This is an age of the world when nations are trembling and convulsed. A mighty influence is abroad, surging and heaving the world, as with an earthquake. And is America safe? Every nation that carries in its bosom great and un-redressed injustice has in it the elements of this last convulsion. As I was reading…
Read MoreHow To Arm Yourself Against Irrationality
February 6, 2017
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. —1 Corinthians 13: 1 My four-year-old enthusiastically agreed to another term of gymnastics with the parks and rec department. He’s not particularly athletic, but he enjoys climbing over obstacles,…
Read MoreThe Casserole Dish Manifesto
January 31, 2017
I possessed a consummate ideology before I had children. It was a perfectly distilled comprehension of man, God, and government. I knew with certainty that if everyone would just turn off the television and read Important Books, we could live alongside one another the way the Almighty intended when he crafted laws of the universe…
Read MoreThere is More to See: A Letter from Gregory Wolfe
November 17, 2016
Dear friends, We are entering a season of thanksgiving, and soon we’ll begin a season of reflection as we prepare to celebrate a remarkable birth that changed human history. I begin with thanksgiving. On behalf of all the staff at Image, thank you. Thank you for being part of our community. Thank you for your…
Read MoreThe Best Words: Selections from the Sex Tapes of Tremendous Male Poets
November 2, 2016
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! —Theodore Roethke, “I Knew a Woman” I know a woman who feels injustice in her lungs. A therapist, all…
Read MoreMy September 11 Story, and Ours, Part II
September 13, 2016
For Scott Simon, and for Bill Craven Continued from yesterday. In the back of my closet, inside a cellophane folder where I keep the rarest papers I own, there is a plain piece of unremarkable 8 ½ by 11 printer paper. At the top of the paper is the inscrutable coding “TC2001091307CD22AM.” Just to look…
Read MoreSome Questions about Politics and the Imagination
July 18, 2016
The following appears as the editorial statement in Image issue 89. Q. Would you mind if I asked you some questions about the current political situation, given the upcoming presidential election and turmoil in Europe? A. I do mind, as a matter of fact. I have nothing to say about such matters. They’re far too complex.…
Read MoreDead People: Leszek Kolakowski (1927-2009)
June 27, 2016
For Gregory Wolfe The following is an excerpt from Meis’s new book Dead People, published June 24 by Zero Books. Leszek Kolakowski died July 17, 2009. He was a philosopher, a man of letters, historian of ideas. He lived the twentieth century life. It sucked. But like many a Pole, he made the best…
Read MoreMore Incisive, More Powerful, More Permanent: Cast Your Vote for Image!
June 15, 2016
A political season is upon us. I’m guessing that whatever your party affiliation or philosophical persuasion, right about now you are frustrated and anxious about the political process. Yes, democracy is messy, but the amount of anger, fear-mongering, and divisiveness out there is leading many to cynicism and despair. Millions of votes have been cast,…
Read MoreChoose Life, North Carolina
April 4, 2016
This day, I call upon the heaven and the earth as witnesses: I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, so that you and your offspring will live. —Duet. 30:19 Once again, my state, North Carolina, has chosen to refuse life. This time in a hastily called emergency session of…
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