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I’ve lied about god all my life
                         —Peter Meinke

But who hasn’t? To make
     even the simplest statement
     risks becoming a fake,

a know-it-all who can’t know
     basic facts, like God’s
     eye color, nor show

Arent Weevers is a Dutch pastor and grief counselor as well as an artist, and the images he creates speak to deep experiences of loss and vulnerability. He comments on his work:

The viewer often becomes aware of the irrevocable fragility of existence and of the unsolvability of your own suffering and that of the other. All in all, the viewer is asked to be daring and to contemplate it. You will be put on the track to God when you try to answer the call of the other.

Down autumn, through the black trees blacker
after the rains, the trees that long to speak
but only utterances we lift from them
enough if they are broken as we are—

down the long corridors of frost and stippling light,
manacles of stars hugging our sides,
down afternoon, down midnight, down hours until dawn,
we lie awake, anticipation’s aftermath—

Mother of Frost, Mother of Mother Earth,
Mother of Inconsolables, what song is this
we cannot hear but break in two for wonder?

                         —not asking my ears
which like shells still surge with your silence.

Ask me this time with your tongue
touching mine. Give your words

to my mouth, let me swallow.
Let me tongue, and taste, and spill

my frail and almost unformed yes
back into you. Let it grow

as will the life I’ll let you plant in me.
So may I know as I’m consumed

that some slip of me is taking root
and strengthening in other soil—

After that first
let there be
shadows sprouted
like grass
gathering waters
to flood
darkness grows
let there be
its light
shadows rolling
to darkness
that Adam
might sleep
bringing Eve
from the shadows
as the serpent called
let there be
like God
where are you
hiding
birthing Cain
as the shadows
grew to darkness
let there be

Both movies made me grateful for directors with risky, new visions—and the space to enjoy them.

Most of them are un-showy now. And: they are holy slowly.
Long haul miracles, call them, because the cure is in the daily:
pale and small: salt’s in the domestic and non-mystic dust:
waking up, prosaic toast, mosaics of laundry, school lunch,
bunches of pansies; the healing’s in the long fingers of Mondays
that wrap round each week and pick up the pallet, walk; azaleas
are burning bushes, are Talitha cum; the open window’s breeze
is a come follow me moment, the job—even the terrible one is

Nick Ripatrazone invites us into the wilderness with some of his favorite writers.

Luke 16:19–31

Dear Lord, my latest high-rise plan is this:
fabulous views, a Starbucks down the block,
security with cameras you can’t miss,    
and rooftop tracks where dogs can take a walk.
I’m filling up my neighborhood with these
apartment towers built for city life
(just keep us separate from the homeless, please,
who beg along our street, upset my wife,
and interrupt a pleasant shopping trip).

At 66, she’s one of the oldest known living persons with Prader-Willi syndrome,” says Gil Stafford, reflecting on his sister’s life, work, and challenges. “Despite her diagnosed developmental disabilities, she has become an outsider artist.” While Dinah Stafford has difficulty communicating verbally, her artwork communicates with sure lines, color, dynamic movement, and a profound spiritual stillness, as in this linocut, Blue Jesus.