A quarterly journal of ideas, art, and faith
If the TV stares back in blank silence without even so much as a message from our sponsors, do not take it askance. Black static flies like a flag over this age. Salute and report for duty, be distracted, for to be distracted is the noblest aim (so long as GDP is not impacted). [Read more...]
Dear God,
Bryan says he doesn’t believe in you anymore. I think he’s just trying to be tough. Please don’t be angry with him. I still believe in you. Amen.
~
Dear God,
This is Leanne. Well, I guess you knew that. Uh, I haven’t talked to you in awhile. I guess you knew that. Look, this is how it is: I really, really need this job. If you help me get it, I’ll do anything. I’ll even go to church again. I’ll quit smoking. I’ll quit drink—Well, you get the idea. Look, I just need this job. Please, God. Uh, thanks. Amen. [Read more...]
I didn’t notice the trees hard-etching the empty November sky as vividly last year. My eyes were elsewhere, and my body a year less tired, less worn, and yet less stripped of the weight that gathers in those long blind years when we feel most wise. [Read more...]
I.
Italics. I am in italics. I am canted slantwise toward the world. I pretend that the Roman numeral was modeled on me—the number for one. One alone, to be my own. . . .
I will never hear.
I.
I am the ellipsis. I am discreetly edited out.
I.
I am trapped in the subjunctive tense. Quisiera. I would have wanted. Perdiera. I would have missed. I would have. You know I would have. [Read more...]
Publisher’s Note
Feature
Bernardo Aparicio Garcia
A Man of Culture: Reflections on the Papal Visit
Fiction
Eleanor Bourg Donlon, The Letters of Magdalen Montague
Joseph Fino
Loneliness Is My Contraception
C.M. Schott,
Amy Kopecky,
Poetry
Joseph O’Brien,
Anders O.F. Hendrickson,
Michael Lee Johnson,
Roger Mitchell,
Leah Acosta,
Eve Tushnet,
Amanda Glass,
Abigail Swift,
Mike Schorsch,
Br. Ignatius Peacher, O. Cist.,
Drama
Grace Andreacchi,
Essays
Stefan McDaniel,
Reviews
Eleanor Bourg Donlon,
Divining Divinity: A Book of Poems by Joseph Pearce
Miguel Jiménez,
Faith at the Edge, edited by Angelo Matera
Art and Photography
Sarah Hempel Irani,
Teresa Burkett,
Patrick Anderson,
Pope Benedict XVI, the pundits tell us, is not living up to his image as God’s Rottweiler. One almost senses a hint of disappointment in their voice. Admittedly, many recent articles have featured generally positive portrayals of the Holy Father, but they have also given rise to the cliché that Pope Benedict is a “mystery.” This seems to have been the default media position during his recent visit to the United States. How is it, they wonder, that this strict disciplinarian—this former Panzerkardinal—now seems more interested in talking about love and hope—as he has at length in his two first encyclicals—than in hunting down heretics, sinners, and unbelievers? Has he gone soft? Is it a public relations move? So far the media refuse to imagine that the caricature of the pope they themselves created upon his election may have been mistaken in the first place. [Read more...]
