Again the curlew calls its name.
Where we’ve camped over years,
the sky has already distanced itself
from the heat press of summer,
the lakeshore fluent
with ridges only seasons of water can scroll.
It’s as if the fields of five decades
have been broomed clean—dry as straw.
But in the border woods, ground holds scent:
leaf-humus and pine,
an after-hint of smoke, or ash.
The escalator broken again
We climb the adjacent stairs
In wingtips and houndstooth slacks.
I peer into the guts of the silent machine.
This is where my mind wanders,
Behind this desk, bathed in soft
Monitor light. This is where
I levitate, oscillate, and glide
Apples! Bags and boxes of apples! So many of them lined the perimeter of our garage that the car hardly fit. It was mid-October, and I stood there counting the apples picked from our three backyard trees and asked myself how long it would take to deal with all of them. This year I was determined not to let any go to waste.
Some readers of this article may know me as an environmental activist (my version of public and church service). A few may know me as an outdoor photographer (my day job). But here I’d like to put on another of my hats. Long before I took up cameras and activism, I was a student of the ancient Near East, with a special interest in Israel and the Bible. In this article, I propose to turn exegete once again and examine the biblical notion of Zion as a model for sustainable living in a world threatened on many fronts by the consequences of its own success.
I put bras in the dryer and forget to refill the toilet paper, and I left the milk on the counter this morning. Again. But I ask for directions and say “I love you,” and…
When I knelt down to pray with John, we were committing a crime. When we spoke about the Book of Mormon, we were cautious of who might be listening. We were brothers in the truest…
Many religious believers today are comfortable with the notion of an evolutionary process over many millions of years as God’s means for achieving the creation. In other words, they believe that, while God governed the creation in some sense, it proceeded largely by natural laws and processes that can be uncovered by diligent research. An open-ended philosophy of this sort is entirely consistent with modern scientific knowledge, and for many (myself included), the “war” between science and religion ends here.
The apologetic works of Clive Staples (“Jack”) Lewis have transcended denominational boundaries to reach an impressively diverse Christian audience. From the beginning of his apologetic career in the mid-1930s, Lewis received letters from Catholics, Evangelicals, Presbyterians, and other Christians thanking him for his inspiring words. Fans from various Christian traditions who felt a certain kinship with Lewis often expressed regret or bewilderment about his allegiance to the Anglican Church.