Arts & Culture
Reading The Waste Land as it turns 100
T. S. Eliot’s epic poem is a masterpiece—but what do we do with its view of classical Western tradition?
Should we avoid liturgical language of light and dark?
While struggling with this question as a church songwriter, I came up with six guidelines.
In witness to a wilting world
Tishani Doshi’s poetic voice dwells between the scriptural and the cultural, between lesson and observation.
Tara Stringfellow’s fictional family brings a real city to life
Like Memphis, Memphis is gritty—filled with danger, tragedy, and humor.
Jonathan Dyck’s queer Mennonite graphic novel
Shelterbelts is a quiet ode to rural life that honors what is good and confronts what is not.
What hope looks like to one Palestinian
Akram al-Waara sits in a refugee camp and makes art—out of tear gas canisters.
Judging Lydia Tár
Todd Field’s movie about a megalomaniacal musician is, like his earlier films, interested in moral ambiguity.
October 23, Ordinary 30C (Joel 2:23–32)
In Joel I encounter the God who has counted what I’ve lost and promised to pay it back.