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Presbyterian border ministry in Douglas, Arizona, and Agua Prieta, Sonora

Mythic Quest and Call My Agent have me feeling nostalgic for annoying colleagues and pointless meetings.

Schooled in Eastern Orthodox art, Jodi Simmons offers an iconographic variation on Italian Renaissance “holy conversation” imagery, in which saints from different eras are shown gathered around sacred figures like the Madonna and Child, as if holding divine debates.

On clear September days, white men in neckties
and gold-buttoned, navy blazers with Palestinian lamps
on their lapel pins appear on our campus, cardboard cartons
on the walk beside dress shoes; tiny, green Testaments in hand.

From a distance, I spy them and turn, unable to accept,
unable to refuse, unable to make conversation with men
who seem to have stepped out of the ’70s, when my dad
belonged to the Christian businessmen’s organization

Those of us who worked with him sometimes suspected he had cloned himself.

“What good is a Methodist college that doesn't have religion professors?” asks one student.

you seem
you really
do seem
so interested
in suffering
thoughtful
and purposeful
pain sorrow
wounds
of hands
feet
and heart
on the Jew’s
flesh
nothing
could be
worse
and more redemptive
you taught

In the art world, he is familiarly called Sliman. Younger Palestinian painters revere him. For more than 40 years, working in occupied lands, Suleiman Mansour has taught, led, and engaged in creative work that brings together art forms, cultural legacy, and a record of a land and a people. A Palestinian Christian, he embeds in his work recurring themes and designs drawn from Islam. As the magazine emel puts it, “Islam is not only part of his culture but also his identity.”

So a local artist found a creative way to cover him up.

Christopher Beha’s characters find themselves in pits, and the way out is not remotely clear.