Provenance

Laura Lynn Brown
Crafty
Those unfinished projects no longer seem tragic. They’re comforting evidence that, like me, like all of us, mom lived with gaps between intention and fruition. I have the choice, and the privilege, but not the obligation, to finish some of what she started. Though I am my mother’s uncompleted work, I think she would approve.

Bequest of a Bookseller

Lanier Ivester
Bookish
I can still hear the jingling of the bells on the back basement door as we opened it and stepped into the cool, dim interior. The air was sweet with the must and dust of the ages, a fragrance to quicken the pulse of any book-lover, and little elf-lamps of light were clipped to the door frames and adorning the shelves, lending a friendly warmth to the gloom.

Brothers and Sisters

Cameron Dezen Hammon
Music
My conversion was real, but it divided us. I had no finesse in my clumsy attempts at evangelism, but I ached for him to join me, to understand. I was baptized on Coney Island in a lightning storm, and ever faithful, he stood on the beach and watched, hands dug deep in the pockets of his Levi’s. I knew he wrestled with the turn I’d taken, but we stopped talking about it. We suddenly got polite.

Believing the Seeds of Wonderland

Alice Smith
Hospitality
What she said that day gave me freedom and permission to look into the eyes of a friend and see a painting in progress, to be surprised by the melodies of memories triggered at perfect moments, to tease out the poetic rhythms of any given day. I began to realize that while many of my friends make art with guitars or paintbrushes, my preferred medium is the fabric of human relationships: making lasting connections between people and seeking to illuminate the image of God that each person bears.

In High Cotton

Kierstin Casella
Place
Give me a porch swing, a balmy night, and some fireflies buzzing around, and I’m a happy clam. From March to September, our turntable crackles with Louis Armstrong’s Louisiana jazz. On weekend evenings we go no farther than our front steps to hear the best local fiddle players; their songs echo through a field of oak trees between our house and our town’s local dive bar. And as much as I like to pretend I have a modern bent, a homespun aesthetic politely oozes from inside our home, too.

Food as Gift

Christine Bailey
Feast
It’s exciting for me to see someone’s eyes light up at the first bite of a Texas blueberry sweeter than candy, especially when I was there when those blueberries were delivered in wooden crates by the farmer who grew them. It’s fulfilling to see parents and two kids riding their bikes home from our store with produce stuffed into the front baskets or a couple walking home each holding one side of their produce bin, swinging it between them as if it were a happy toddler.

Five Poems

Daniel Bowman Jr.
Bookish
The kneeling me looks like
a man who has kept to himself
for too long upon learning
he had been fooled by a grand idea.
He repents only in the face of death.
The dead me is white as an angel,
young and crowned with seaweed.

Elizabeth

Wendy Knight
Creation Care
I grew up the daughter of a gardener and helped can tomatoes annually. After high school, I worked in a nursery, rescuing reject plants, putting them wherever I could find a spare patch of soil. Wherever I moved I planted, leaving a trail of perennials and flowering shrubs in my wake. When my husband and I purchased a half-acre lot in Nashville, I surrounded the home with flowerbeds while a sizable kitchen garden grew out back. Still, it didn't seem enough.
Of Silence, Wildness, and Saint Ignatius

Of Silence, Wildness, and Saint Ignatius

Mary Van Denend
Truth

To get there you must first drive an hour and a half northwest toward the ocean, then meander through a national wildlife sanctuary (with a band of donkeys wandering the hillsides) until you can’t go any farther. All along the way, you’re slowly enveloped by a web of forest and fog, mist and mystery. You must trust that the circuitous gravel road does indeed lead somewhere . . .

"Sweet Land": the Waltz of Olaf and Inge

Jenni Simmons
Stage & Screen
Inge’s faith gave her the gumption to arrive on strange soil with little more than a possibility of love. She continually forgave a community who would not reciprocate the courtesy. And though she and her beau were shunned in the eyes of the law, they triumphed by having faith in each other. Like any good love story, they found something they needed in the quiet eyes of the other.
Namemaking, Weary Work for Whales and Men

Namemaking, Weary Work for Whales and Men

Charlie Peacock
Truth

When someone’s name is that pervasive you’ve got to ask, “Why?” What makes some personal fame timeless? What kind of spirit embeds itself in words and names to give them oomph? I’ve come to believe famous people come in two varieties: famous for all the right reasons like Jesus and Johnny Cash, and famous for all the wrong reasons like Joe the Plumber and John Sutter.

Exchanging the Lie for Truth

Jessica Eddings-Roeser
Truth
Out of their poverty, they substitute the truth for a lie, because the lie is all they know, yet they search for truth where they can. They glory at the honesty of bloody fingerprints on otherwise radiant skin; they revel at locks of hair torn and then thrown to the grimy ground. They rejoice in meaning, even when it’s ugly. They acknowledge desire, fear, passion, angst, and ache to see it with their own eyes.

The Scent of Slow

Margie Haack
Feast
More often these days I make an effort to contemplate, to participate in what comes to life in the kitchen. Scratch cooking and baking is somewhat counter-cultural and partly a spiritual exercise for me. It's my effort to deny fastness in order to slow down, appreciate, and taste the unfolding richness of what God has implanted in ordinary ingredients.
The Art House Dallas Song Project: a Recap and Reflection

The Art House Dallas Song Project: a Recap and Reflection

Charlie Peacock
Music

For anyone who is serious about having a songwriting life inspired by Jesus, it’s time to deal with what He is interested in — everything. This means people seeking God in a more beautiful, faithful way of living which is holistic in scope — beyond pietism to a true rightness, the rightness revealed in the person of Jesus and all that concerns Him.

Full of Beans

Full of Beans

Andi Ashworth
Truth

Play is an essential, but often forgotten aspect of life. We leave it behind when we enter the serious business of adulthood and too often forget to pick it up again. We go for long stretches of time, working hard and persevering with one thing and another — projects and people. In particularly weary and anxious seasons, I often recognize in myself a longing to experience something completely other. It begins to well up inside until I feel I could burst from the need for a change.

Relocation

Eric Peters
Creation Care
Winter’s slow but resistant recession has begun, and every part of me approves of the transformation. Robins know, too. They sing differently in this air. With more intent, their warbles cascade with less timidity, more gallantly, with greater vigor, more musically sweeping. They know. I listen.

My Everyday Eucharist

Allison Gaskins
Crafty, Feast
We have settled into winter here in Virginia. The salty white streets blend right into the chalky horizon. Cold cloaks our home and seeps in through the cracks. We’re expecting snow tonight. But fragrant on my stovetop is the scent of summertime. And if I close my eyes and stand in the warm steam rising from the pot, I can remember the sultry day when the children and I canned this soup. The laughter rang loudly that afternoon, and the tomatoes splattered all over the kitchen. Months gone now, yet still I find remnants stuck to the cabinets. And I smile. Canning food is a messy, measured, raucous process and I love it.

On Playlists and Publishing

Sarah Braud
Bookish, Music
She’s a mother, a hair stylist, a published fiction writer. Kristin Russell isn’t trying to show off. She’s just that impressive. Between her work at a hipster salon in the 12th South neighborhood of Nashville and caring for her two-year-old son Finn, her husband Rann, and her yorkie Audrey, Kristin has made the time to release her literary energy. Her attempts have resulted in a successful first novel, Recovering Ramona, a story about a “young woman who tackles her mom issues and her fears about starting a future family with the help of an eccentric hippie and a 1986 Volvo.”
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