By Karen Swank you tell me who you are every day by your words how you speak of enemies the way you talk to friends your tone with your family what is secret, what is shared by the way you use your knowledge to beat people down to lift others up or simply as a … Continue reading Poem: Character
By Renay D. Burger We have lost our endearing sense of peasantry. As a country of compulsive consumers, renegades of the plastic, we have become the pseudo-highbrow, the contrived class, a wash of fraudulent images. Though we American Express ourselves into the pit of debt, we are out of touch with the reality of dirt, … Continue reading A Peasant’s Critical Creativity
By Jeanette Wheeler We may be wealthy in America, but we need to see our own poverty of spirit. Identifying with the poor is not only part of the faith that Jesus gave to us; it is a sacramental part of our sanctification. In other words, walking with Jesus requires walking with the poor. So, … Continue reading In the Dumps of Nicaragua: Encountering the poor
By Lauren Deville I have drifted down a ways along the shoreline, I just watched these ropes give way where they were tied. I could have reached out quick when the ropes first slipped, if I had tried, but I was wondering where the wind was trying to take me overnight, if I never did … Continue reading Letting Go of the Ropes
By Mariah Secrest My city of Tucson is like most cities of any substantial size, spread out into distinct areas in a veritable demographic paint-by-number. There’s the kooky, intellectual university downtown area, the rich yuppie foothills area, the clean, safe family suburbs of the northwest (where my two other single 20-something roommates and I live … Continue reading The Strangers Next Door: The refugees of Tucson
By Eric Paul My wife and I just completed our move to the South. After living six years in the Chicago area, we took the 500 mile trek south to Nashville. I am starting graduate work at Vanderbilt as we begin this new chapter in our lives. It has been an interesting two weeks. My … Continue reading A New Cultural Climate: Adjusting to Latin American culture in the U.S.
By Mariah Secrest Continued from: Against All Hope: Happily ever after Why is this? I think its because like Monica we live vicariously through stories. And we find ourselves where the stakes are high. We have felt the loom of impending doubt in the circumstances that first brought us out of naivety into sober, guarded … Continue reading Against All Hope, Happily Ever After (pt. 2)
By Shane Ambro All of my life, I think I have been plagued by this visual picture of “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” I think sometime, around 10th or 11th grade I was supposed to read that sermon by what’s-his-name. I think I read it, but I was never really all that … Continue reading Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God?
By Lauren Deville Continued from: The End of Faith: Does religious tolerance make any sense? This does not, though, mean that I don’t think such a thing as absolute truth exists only that its form is probably messy, and slippery, and (from an earthly perspective) incomplete but never at its root, contradictory. And now I … Continue reading The End of Faith: Does religious tolerance make any sense? (Pt. 2)
By Ericka Bennett From my journal during my time in India. Note: Asha is Hindi for “hope.” I found Hope today. There, in the middle of the leper colony. It was the most unexpected discovery I knew when I looked into her big brown eyes, innocent and inviting, full of joy despite her circumstances, and … Continue reading Hope in a Leper Colony