Advent, Week One: Hope

The ark of the covenant was hidden behind a network of barricades. You couldn’t stroll into the temple and lay hands on the seat and symbol of God’s presence. There were sacrifices to be made, garments to be worn. After ritual cleansings, there were sacred coals, incense, showbread, a bloody altar. If you ran this gauntlet, if you leapt every hurdle, still you would not meet God. You’d come face-to-face with a thirty by sixty foot wall of fabric. As it wasn’t made of stone, perhaps the veil gave an illusion of flexibility, of softness. But make no mistake: it was there to keep you out. It was there to prevent your entering into the holy of holies and communing with the Most High God.

Means of Giving Thanks in 2020

This year, it’s not a given to be thankful. In fact, one could go so far as to call it an accomplishment. So we’re not here to pressure you into it, silently waiting to cut the turkey until you’ve shared what you’re thankful for this year. However, we are here to offer some words and melodies that stir thanksgiving in us, recognizing that perhaps now more than ever, gratitude is a necessity too often mistaken for a luxury.

The Habit Podcast: Tsh Oxenreider

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Tsh Oxenreider, teacher, podcaster, literary tour guide, and author of Shadow and Light: A Journey into Advent.

Long Listens and Infinite Sadnesses

The perfect album lands between 42 and 47 minutes. It’s long enough to embrace an emotional arc and take the listener on a journey without overstaying its welcome or veering into self-indulgence. Every so often, however, an album earns a longer stay. Indeed, some of popular music’s greatest feats are far longer than 60 minutes. Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly runs 78 minutes; Pink Floyd’s The Wall is slightly longer at 80 minutes; the Beatles’ boundless White Album deserves every bit of its 93 minutes (though I used to believe it was half fluff).

5&1, Part 7: Inexpressible Grief Expressed

This is the seventh in a weekly series that will seek to break down the mists and myths that put people off the vast treasure house that is classical music. Each time, I’ll take a theme and choose 5 pieces or excerpts (from over 600 years’ worth of music) and then round it all off with one larger work.

Hence 5&1 from 600!

A Literary Playlist

I see the world of art as one expansive tapestry. No particular work exists in a vacuum; its fabric overlaps its artistic neighbors. Dyes blend. Threads interweave. Over time, a gorgeous picture is revealed made of myriad strands that—while precious in their individual ways—are elevated by their intricate connections to and contrasts with each other.

Rabbit Trails #27

Jonny Jimison is back with artistic insight and empathy in this 27th edition of Rabbit Trails.

The Habit Podcast: Crystal Downing

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Crystal Downing, Director of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College and author of Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy Sayers.

Stories of Grief Redeemed: An Interview with Janna Barber

We like to say around here that “community nourishes art,” and there is no joy like watching a piece of art grow from the seeds of friendship into a finished work. We’re excited to let you know our friend and contributor Janna Barber is about to release her debut memoir Hidden in Shadow. I met Janna at Hutchmoot 2011, and over the years have found in her a kindred writer spirit, someone who desires to grow in her craft and offer hope through her words.

Seeing with Our Ears: A Review of A. S. Peterson’s Frankenstein

The country of radio theater has long been depopulated, but still its fields are fertile as ever they were. There, the imagination grows high, strengthened by roots which must dig deep to find purchase. Artists and craftspeople have long known: a good way to enrich one’s work is by limiting materials. Take away a color or two from your palette. Use only hand tools on your woodwork. Cook your meat plain, with heat, smoke, and nothing else. In radio theater, we forego our eyes; therefore our minds rocket into the realms of possibility.

So goes A. S. Peterson’s Frankenstein.

5&1, Part 6: Welcome to the Waltz

This is the sixth in a weekly series that will seek to break down the mists and myths that put people off the vast treasure house that is classical music. Each time, I’ll take a theme and choose 5 pieces or excerpts (from over 600 years’ worth of music) and then round it all off with one larger work.

Hence 5&1 from 600!

Reading Group: The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon

From a passionate and talented chef who also happens to be an Episcopalian priest comes this surprising and thought-provoking treatise on everything from prayer to poetry to puff pastry. In The Supper of the Lamb, Capon talks about festal and ferial cooking, emerging as an inspirational voice extolling the benefits and wonders of old-fashioned home cooking in a world of fast food and prepackaged cuisine. The Supper of the Lamb offers a theology of food and cooking, and a reminder that the world where we find ourselves is itself a feast and a gift.