Tag Archives: faith

Unexpected Grace: Ten conversion novels you should read

Sadly, literature that brings faith authentically to bear on the world is a rare thing. But here are ten novels that use the narrative of conversion to show faith and grace colliding with the ordinary, the sordid and the plain broken. Not all are by professing believers. Not all are orthodox. But all are compellingContinue reading “Unexpected Grace: Ten conversion novels you should read”

Unless I See: After Caravaggio’s “Incredulity of Saint Thomas”

No need to touch the scars; Caravaggio got that detail wrong. The sheer force of His presence made Thomas crumple, doubt ceasing where belief gained life, the parched taste, hesitant like salt, exultant like wine, as loosened lips croaked, My Lord and my God. Yet I am comforted to see both the outstretched hand andContinue reading “Unless I See: After Caravaggio’s “Incredulity of Saint Thomas””

Christmas 4: Lully Lullay

Today is perhaps the hardest day of the Christmas season, the day that remembers the story found in Matthew 2 of Herod ordering the murder of all boys under the age of 2. While this is not an aspect of the Christmas story that is often told, it finds a home in an old andContinue reading “Christmas 4: Lully Lullay”

Philosophical Crumbs: Haiku for Kierkegaard

A friend of mine recently said that he had tried to read Kierkegaard but hadn’t made it. “I need the children’s book version,” he said. Probably not an unusual experience. While I’m not sure I’m the one to provide the children’s book, I thought I could do the next best thing: to try to putContinue reading “Philosophical Crumbs: Haiku for Kierkegaard”

In Translation

If you find them worth publishing, you have my permission to do so – as a sort of ‘White Book’ concerning my negotiations with myself – and with God. (Dag Hammarskjöld, in a letter to Leif Belfrage)* And so they sat together, the poet without “a single word of Swedish” at hand, and the translator,Continue reading “In Translation”

“The thick darkness where God was”

This is what must first be given to the painting, a harmonious warmth, an abyss into which the eye sinks, a voiceless germination… (Paul Cézanne) How often is he shown with those horns of light, as though his head were itself full of the brightest luminescence and two cracks, two holes had formed inside his skullContinue reading ““The thick darkness where God was””

“A catholic taste,” she said

and I nodded, not knowing at all what she meant, for I was not, nor have ever been, Catholic. How then, I wondered, was my reading taste catholic? The word, at the time, meant Mary and popes, not expansive, far-reaching, inclusive. Now I give my old teacher’s words new meaning: yes, catholic in reading, inContinue reading ““A catholic taste,” she said”