Essays
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Mark 11 and C.S. Lewis
This morning I revisited C.S. Lewis’s thoughts on Mark 11:24 in Letters to Malcolm. I like his take, and I’m going to quote him at length from his 11th chapter. He concludes by…
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When I Was a Child I Read Books
I belong to the community of the written word in several ways. First, books have taught me most of what I know, and they have trained my attention and my imagination. Second, they…
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Revisiting “The Long-Legged House”
I’ve been rereading one of Wendell Berry’s early works, the title essay of his first published collection The Long-Legged House. He describes a camp on the riverbank, built by his great-uncle, and its…
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An Altar in the World
An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith is a beautifully written contemplation on the ways ordinary living can intersect with the divine. Barbara Brown Taylor writes about the everyday disciplines that…
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Marvelous luggage
Whether you are sick or well, lovely or irregular, there comes a time when it is vitally important for your spiritual health to drop your clothes, look in the mirror, and say, “Here…
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Learning Curve
I’m trying to learn how to photograph birds in flight. I’ve taken so many pictures, and few if any have turned out. Today I’ve done some reading on the subject and feel encouraged;…
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The Lost Art of Reading
David Ulin’s Lost Art of Reading has been a thought-provoking little book. Described as a “ruminative essay,” this compact reflection on the distinctiveness of reading, and its role in an increasingly networked information…
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Becoming Native to This Place
I was introduced to Wes Jackson’s work through reading Wendell Berry. The two men have a longstanding friendship and have similar views of what Berry has called “culture and agriculture.” In Becoming Native…
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Reflections on Marilynne Robinson’s essays
By the standards of my generation, all my life I have gone to church with a kind of persistence, as I do to this day. Once recently I found myself traveling all night…
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Not subject
The very first essay I read by Wendell Berry was “The Rise,” from his collection The Long-Legged House. It describes a canoe ride on the Kentucky River during one of its winter rises.…
