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Poetry

In the Living Room, Listening to Gregorian Chant

One sustained Alleluia kisses the psalmodic couch, the sanctified family photos, and the unstained glass window where I see a monk- neighbor in medieval bathrobe find that he has no mail, reaching into the emptiness and coming out with his blessed hand. Ron Riekki’s books include U.P.: a novel; The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works; Here: Women Writing on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; and And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 (Michigan State University Press, 2017). Photo:…
August 31, 2017
Reviews

Man versus Man, Woman versus Woman: Mixed Martial Arts and Gender Identity

Beast: Blood, Struggle, and Dreams at the Heart of Mixed Martial Arts BEAST: BLOOD, STRUGGLE, AND DREAMS AT THE HEART OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS DOUG MERLINO BLOOMSBURY, 2015 $26 272 PAGES THE PROFESSOR IN THE CAGE: WHY MEN FIGHT AND WHY WE LIKE TO WATCH JONATHAN GOTTSCHALL PENGUIN BOOKS, 2015 $26.95 304 PAGES During my graduate-school years, two massive forces collided in my life. First, the Ultimate Fighting Championship took a gamble on a television show called “The Ultimate Fighter”…
August 31, 2017
Essays

What if This Had Been Me? A Gendered Analysis of the Funniest Video Ever

Confession time: I have a guilty pleasure. Some very smart, very sophisticated people I know watch reality TV. The ridiculously staged, morally questionable, emotionally manipulative kind of reality TV. I don’t. But I’ve always had a soft spot for America’s Funniest Home Videos – I’ll laugh shamelessly at other people’s misadventures, bloopers and pratfalls. With Netflix, I rarely watch any television any more, and I can’t remember the last time I watched AFV. But thanks to social media, I still…
August 31, 2017
Reviews

Probing America’s Premiere Youth Ministry

Making Jesus Attractive: The Ministry and Message of Young Life MAKING JESUS ATTRACTIVE: THE MINISTRY AND MESSAGE OF YOUNG LIFE GRETCHEN SCHOON TANIS PICKWICK PUBLICATIONS, 2016 178 PAGES $23 A friend who is a senior ministry leader with Young Life tells the story of the reaction he received at a high school reunion from a former classmate after they swapped details of what they were up to now. “You work for Young Life?” the classmate asked. “Hey, I liked marching…
June 30, 2017
Poetry

A Nice Bit of Work

If I sit on the porch and look out on the morning, It is the dust I first see on the window panes, Smudged here and there where my hand has brushed it And speckled where condensation has dried. I could stop here and think about cleaning, About making the moment better next time. Or I might grasp the obvious metaphor And scrub away at my own grimy soul, But I would rather watch the tiny bug Crawling up the…
June 30, 2017
Essays

The Whole Church Gathered: How Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship” Speaks to the Church Today

“When children expect something it is impossible to give only part of oneself to them.” ­­– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Theologian, Christian, Man for His Times: A Biography.  The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins his book Discipleship by saying, “It is not ultimately important to us what this or that church leader wants. Rather, we want to know what Jesus wants.” Bonhoeffer wrote these words after the Gestapo shut down his beloved seminary in Finkenwalde. They…
June 30, 2017
Inside Out

Is their Span but Toil and Trouble?

“All our days pass away under thy wrath, our years come to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are threescore and ten, or even by reason of strength four-score; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. ... So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” – Psalm 90   When we are young, we don’t worry or think much about…
June 30, 2017
Poetry

Habitat

Miles and a moment’s ease flake away – the toddler shook us awake to ask When did Jesus paint our skin? Like memories of San Francisco we stayed a bit undusted, overlooking ourselves like silk-stranded ceiling corners. Bits of every epidermal surface flake away to pile in and around us. Cracked caulk and shower tile heap like moraine scree – not much room for the likes of a caricature plant, a euphorbia, or a firebush. Peter Bast lives and works…
June 30, 2017
Essays

Dostoevsky and the Panacea for Personal Judgment

Proverbs echo in the wind tunnel of history. We cannot help but hear reverberations of past wisdom in present-day prose. In the Manipulus Florum (“handful of flowers”), for instance, we find the following words attributed to Saint Augustine: “The pride of angels made them demons; the humility of men makes them as angels.” Quite the maxim, isn’t it? In seven hundred years, we haven’t changed all that much. Pride still brings out the worst in us, and humility, the best.…
June 30, 2017