When I was diagnosed with cancer, I was shocked to find I had no paid leave or legal job protection.
illness
Sometimes vocation springs not from joy but from trauma and grief.
With her own voice changed by the stroke, she wanted to hear the Bible spoken aloud by her husband.
Leila Chatti writes intensely physical poems about faith, illness, and sex
The poetic vision of Deluge reconciles Muslim and Christian themes.
I'm immunocompromised. My ability to attend worship has long been determined by the CDC.
When Jane Tompkins couldn’t move, she read
Confined by illness, the feminist literary scholar dove into the complete works of V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux.
Cancer and good news
Todd Billings weaves his struggle with a rare form of blood cancer together with probing biblical and theological reflection.
One day, as I considered my routine of pills and naps and exercises, I saw that it is not unlike praying the hours.
Once in the West: Poems, by Christian Wiman
Christian Wiman offers further evidence that his voice is among the most compelling in contemporary poetry. These poems are filled with theological conundrums, unanswered questions, brutal answers to questions never formed, and above all, contradictions.
At 52 I was lead pastor of a large, vibrant church. Then I was diagnosed with ALS, and I began to call on my faith community in a new way.
Disrupted, by Julie Anderson Love
After her bleak diagnosis, Julie Anderson Love learned that hope has nothing to do with passivity. She was, she writes, "the patient from hell."
It’s tempting to blame partisan politics for last summer’s debacle over “death panels” and the very idea of doctors and patients holding conversations about the end of life. But the truth is: these conversations are difficult. Although some people welcome them, others approach the subject of death cautiously. Many of us would rather not explore what awaits us in the final years or weeks of life. Perhaps this reluctance explains why only one in five Americans has completed an advance directive for medical care.