Life of Faith
A habit of attending
I am thankful for the ways that writing this column has invited me to discover what it means to live a prayerful life.
Ninety-nine names for a God beyond measure
As anthropologist Amira Mittermaier asks Egyptians who God is to them, she both attends to Islamic tradition and refuses to let it impose limits.
The Leonard Cohen 10k challenge
I decided to listen to his whole discography while running. Even as slowly as I run, it would take a lot of kilometers to do it.
Chasing shinies in a secular age
Is Pokémon GO a late-capitalist venture in re-enchanting the world?
Sacred stacks
“Learning and faith are both vulnerable processes,” says librarian Sam Helmick, “because they’re both dedicated to the idea that you don’t have everything figured out.”
The politics of cutting people off
Political breakups aren’t some new low in American life. They’re an understandable response to stakes that have always been life and death.
The holy resilience of Gisèle Pelicot
Pelicot doesn’t believe in God, but her memoir of surviving decades of her husband’s abuse testifies to the dignity of the human soul.
Rebirth pangs
Where something has died, something else must now be born. It’s not going to be fun.
José Saramago’s clarifying unbelief
Reading the atheist novelist has shaped my faith’s suspicion of religious power, capitalist inevitability, and hollow progress.
Faith formed in correspondence
In their letters to each other, poet Christian Wiman and theologian Miroslav Volf test the language of belief.
Upside-down medicine
Jim O’Connell’s practice is built not on profit but on giving his patients—the unhoused of Boston—whatever time they need.
Church gossip and a pastor’s double life
I’m obligated to a high standard of confidentiality. I also find the stories on social media hard to resist.
Blessings for all
Christine Valters Paintner draws on Jewish, Islamic, and Celtic traditions to widen what is worthy of blessing.
My prayer for soldiers
I looked up to see a line of 50 kids in uniform boarding the plane. Every one of them had brown skin like mine.
The price of virtue
It is often easier to do good or be good if you are rich. Just ask Job.