And then I wonder: is this the quiet that dominates the life of all those people in hiding as well? The smallness, the excessive focus on detail, the mind going around in ever smaller circles? Will deeper thoughts and grand narratives only make themselves heard after this is all over?

The following is Jamie Smith’s editorial from Image’s hundredth issue, which mails to subscribers this week. A special extra-thick issue on friendship, rivalry, and collaboration, it features Shane McCrae, A.E. Stallings, Bruce Cockburn, Molly McCully Brown, Padraig O Tuama, Christopher Beha, and many others. If you don’t subscribe, you can still get it as your first…

This post originally appeared in Good Letters on October 20, 2011 In the last few years, my school has made a huge push towards what our Global Studies’ Director refers to as “glocalism.” In essence, glocalism encapsulates the idea that we are all of us citizens of various communities, both local and global, and that…

The fact that a half-hour meal alone in an IHOP occasions its own blog post shows just how far I’ve devolved in my practice of solitude. I’ve gotten pretty good at putting my phone away when going out for meals with friends and family. But when I’m alone in a waiting room, in line at…

I am outdoors in the late afternoon and sitting cross-legged on a quilt from which I can view the garden. This spot, under the shade of a large sugar maple—the setting idyllic and agrarian—should be perfect for quiet prayer. But it’s not. I think I am emerging from the haze of an anxiety that caught…

When I moved into this apartment with my wife after gaining Canadian immigration clearance, I noticed, standing on our balcony, two apartments in the public housing building across from us. The first apartment, near the center of the building and four stories below us, was always visible at a sharp angle from above, and inside…

My daily bike-ride near downtown Tucson is not picturesque. It’s along a bike trail that’s squeezed between a highway and a tattered string of small factories and beaten down neighborhoods. The bike trail is usually fairly abandoned when I ride it. Occasionally I’ll pass another biker or someone walking. But I can always count on…