The absence
Edward Hopper, Sun in an Empty Room (1963). Image source: archi-ethan.blogspot.com The Absence It is this great absence that is like a presence, that compels me to address it without hope of a reply. It is a room I enter from which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrival of one who has [...]
Repost: An ash heap with a view
Oldřich Kulhánek, Job No. 1. Lithograph (2002) This post was published first on 14 September 2010. It seems appropriate for today, Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the Christian season of Lent. The Old Testament books of Wisdom are among my favorites in the Christian canon (they are also present in the Hebrew Scriptures). [...]
More on depression and dark nights
Lisa Preece, Depression. See more of Lisa’s work at lisabellaphoto.com This semester I have been taking a directed study on apophatic theology. I have been overwhelmed with the power of apophasis since discovering it during my first semester at Emory. It is the only kind of theology that has ever affected me deeply. Apophatic theology, [...]
The darkness of God
Partial solar eclipse, 10 June 2002, Joshua Tree National Park, California. Sometimes the sun is eclipsed by a moon, you know I don’t see you when she walks in the room — U2, The Fly Today is All Saints Day. Today we Christian persons remember those good saints who have gone before us. In particular [...]
La Pietà and the cosmos
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, La Pietà (detail), 1499 I have just come out of what was perhaps the most inspiring lecture I have ever attended. You have no idea how amazing it was. Believe it or not, it was about Michelangelo‘s La Pietà and the cosmos. It was also about John Calvin. It was [...]
An ash heap with a view
Oldřich Kulhánek, Job No. 1. Lithograph (2002) Let’s talk us some Bible. The Old Testament books of Wisdom are among my favorites in the Christian canon (they are also present in the Hebrew canon). They don’t get heavy into theology like Paul’s letters and they don’t feature a hundred brilliant stories like Exodus. The Wisdom [...]
Deserve’s got nothing to do with it
“I’ve always been lucky when it comes to killing folks.” William Munny’s resolve breaks at the end of Unforgiven as he goes on a brutal killing spree. The myth of redemptive violence lives on in the greatest of Anti-Westerns (making it, perhaps, the first Anti-Anti-Western). On Sunday my family and I (and my sister’s family) [...]
Behold the Void
The Zen enso, a symbol of the interplay between Form and Void Sitting meditation is not, as is often supposed, a spiritual “exercise,” a practice followed for some ulterior object. From a Buddhist standpoint, it is simply the proper way to sit, and it seems perfectly natural to remain sitting so long as there is [...]
The Body of Christ, shattered again
Hans Holbein the Younger, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, 1522 Wieuca Road Baptist Church, the church that raised me and loved me without reserve, is laid out in its tomb. Once again the Body of Christ has been broken by anger, mistrust, and fear. Once again we humble ourselves and beg [...]
What’s scary: “making a difference”
Cartoon courtesy of American Hell I’m going to go out on a limb here and I may alienate some folks, but I’m getting used to that. So here goes: What scares me are people who wake up every morning determined to “make a difference.” This probably sounds incredibly cynical, but I don’t think it is. [...]
