Lot’s wife, or what’s left of her, stands in the barren wilderness outside Sodom waiting to trip up any who would skip merrily through the Old Testament, seeing God only as creator, provider, and oh-so-merciful father. It’s no wonder that so many poets—with their obnoxious preference for the prophetic—have invited her into their lines to…

On a tactile level, we are reminded of the common experience of salt in this poem by Amy McCann. How it cures and crimps, the taste of tears on your face or floating, mouth open and vulnerable, in the sea. We are also introduced to a complicated voice who describes herself as “The lick I…

Beside me this morning is a child at the breakfast table vigorously chewing a Fuji apple and explaining to me the mutative abilities of a small vehicle based on the particular placement of a certain Lego brick. Sometimes the vehicle is a plow, sometimes a combine, depending on whether that brick is before it, behind…

Eve, my sister The one who took the fall Eve, my sister Mother of us all Lift up your head Don’t hide your blushing face The promised One Is finally on His way —Mary Consoles Eve, “Rain for Roots” You have been my first companion in a lifetime of laughter, quarrels, and confidences. Without you,…

My prayer is not prayer, not exactly. It includes words. It may even begin with words: “Modeh ani l’fanecha / grateful am I in your presence; baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu, Melech Haolam, hanotein laya-eif ko-ach / Praise to You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who gives strength to the weary; ahavah rabbah ahavtanu…

Continued from yesterday. Read Part 1 here. GW: One of the most interesting aspects of The Confessions of X is the way that X herself responds to Augustine’s intellectual passions, from his Manichean phase to Platonism. She’s not an intellectual but she’s no pushover and she instinctively challenges Augustine… SMW: The last thing I wanted…

At five a.m. this morning, my husband woke me while taking money from my wallet to buy donuts for himself and our fourth child who was to accompany him to the lumberyard. He was buying wood to build a picnic table and a couple of porch swings. My husband shouldn’t be driving a car. He…

If I had a garden to kneel in to call out to God, it would be my mother’s yard. Lined on three sides by pasture, the ground is ribbed with roots from an oak tree that towers by the fence, and is patched with dirt from where the grass never properly went to seed.