The Amazing and Totally Useless Power of “Thoughts and Prayers”

Ah yes, the universal panacea! The easy answer. The spiritual duct tape slapped on every crisis.Just close my eyes, whisper something vaguely hopeful, and watch the world magically fix itself. Poverty disappears. Crime vanishes. Corrupt leaders feel conviction. All from the safety of my recliner. I love the optics of compassion. Post it on social media—maybeContinueContinue reading “The Amazing and Totally Useless Power of “Thoughts and Prayers””

Thoughts on a Fallen Steeple

A wind came without warning, strong enough to take a steeple clean off a church and yet restrained enough to spare everything else. When it was over, a sanctuary stood as it always had. No shattered windows. No collapsed walls. Only a steeple, white and fiberglass, torn by force, lying in pieces, carefully gathered andContinueContinue reading “Thoughts on a Fallen Steeple”

This is a Song for Someone

This is New Year’s Eve, a time to celebrate endings and beginnings, but my heart’s just not in it. Maybe yours isn’t either. If you’re one of them, or if someone close to you is, maybe this piece will land like a small reminder that the light is still there. I know a handful ofContinueContinue reading “This is a Song for Someone”

Más: Futility in a Catchy Beat

I discovered Kinky’s “Más” this morning on a music subreddit, after spending most of the night with fever, sneezing, and coughing as this flu bug peaked. Chasing one last tissue, one extra dose of medicine, always one more something that never quite satisfied, the song caught me and held me, its repeated más echoing my restless state.ContinueContinue reading “Más: Futility in a Catchy Beat”

In Memoriam: Edith Mary Tolkien (1889–1971)

On November 29, 1971, Edith Mary Tolkien slipped quietly from this world when she was eighty-two, leaving behind a life woven into the fabric of her family and the imagination of Middle-earth. To the world, she may have seemed the quiet wife of J.R.R. Tolkien, but her life was more complex than any simple label.ContinueContinue reading “In Memoriam: Edith Mary Tolkien (1889–1971)”