Here at Conciliar Post, many of us are avid readers. These are a few of the things we’ve been reading lately. Jarrett Dickey, House Church The Man in the High Castle (Philip K. Dick) Philip K. Dick’s novel imagines a world where the Axis powers won World War II. In this alternate reality, the United States is divided into three districts. The Nazis control the eastern seaboard while the Japanese administrate the Pacific States. In the

Kindness flowing out in wine and chocolate chip cookies, in smiles and eyes, in words and hidden acts   Grace flowing down in water and wine and blood over dark soul nights, to unworthy us   Love flowing over from hearts and hands, eyes and lips in forgiveness again, and again—every time   Gifts ever flowing that we cannot earn, cannot repay, we humbly receive with open, empty hands   Full over flowing hands and

From director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club), HBO’s Big Little Lies is a slow burn drama that rewards careful viewing. Set in idyllic Monterey, California, the story centers on the world of wealthy wives and their children. Yet unlike many star-studded portrayals of Hollywood glamour, the opulence of Big Little Lies unveils, rather than obscures, the common humanity of its protagonists. [Spoilers Ahead] Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) is an outsider to the Monterey community. The

Advent Heavy lay the snow the last warm breath just lingering inside our gloves next to fatigue it slowed and chilled me and my brothers toying with a seam at winter’s hem until the cold was far too much we stumbled home and stood like living clouds of steam our thrown scarves garlands for the railing and the chairs Mother I even began to feel afraid when the last light topped its arc those slender

 What if prayer is a furnace?      When we confess, every sin and every evil thing         is burnt away into ashes.            But every prayer in line with Life and Love             —stemming from God’s Spirit—                  is refined like gold and silver.                     What if that? 

All the Secrets You don’t believe me, look there, part the grass, he’s walking through the kitchen in his shirt you laugh he’ll hear you and come looking. He keeps (I saw it from a faded picture snagged at midnight on a full-waned moon a solitary awning’s bulb the best light going) a frog that talks, oh yes I mean it don’t you say I lied, I’ve heard it croak a choked horn’s wheeze that

by Cameron Brooks   On an early September morning I hear Fall whispering. Rushing out the front door I catch its thin voice in an unexpected breeze, faint, crisp, foreign to my bare skin, which is leathered and browned from four months of sun and sand and runs along the river behind our home. I pause in the paved lot to listen closer. As I lean into the breeze, I remember how my world has

Images of the Shroud I stay up late at night searching for high-resolution images of the Shroud of Turin weighing the evidence and different theories. I can see the blood on his arms, ringing round the bicep and shoulders, running like tattoos, the wound on the hand, and those on the feet, ribcage, and brow. They trace a body on the cloth, the relic of a crux connecting earth to heaven, there to issue blood

You scallywag scavenger, throaty chatterer, who rows through the sky with graceful pride, your wings black and white dipping the wind, tipping like a canoe but never capsized— that is you, O magnificent Magpie!

  The King of All Creation The Book of Tobit The demon Asmodeus swept the sky all ownership and prowess, casting through each curtain of wind, cresting toward the maiden’s bower. “I am the king of all creation, I am the high-rise towering over the tenements! I am the mighty Asmodeus, conqueror, seducer, deepest shadow of the strongest light, widower, crucible, biggest bubble in the soaphouse, bug of bugs!” Swifter than an accidental fart, he

I Want a Solution    for Charlottesville, VA I want a solution but my mind offers platitudes maybe they’re enough to seal the gap the whistling cold the difference between yesterday and today in Charlottesville where others carry thoughts like a sickness that kills them first swinging their fever in censers anointing their steps with ash walking by them I try to keep quiet and pass unseen my easy answers held out of sight like

Over the last few months, there’ve been more than a few controversies about art. For instance: the National Endowment for the Arts has found itself on the budgetary chopping block; white artist Dana Schutz’s painting of murdered black teen Emmitt Till has been denounced as exploitative; Netflix’s suicide-themed drama “13 Reasons Why” has been called an irresponsible and dangerous work; a standoff between sculptures on Wall Street has raised questions about artistic integrity. These brouhahas

Like So Many Things Through invisible fissures bones invested the jelly and were spooled around with veins that traced a floating scaffolding of fibers, twitching with electricity, suffused with untouched blood newly made for this alone. This new being is like a heron perched on the concrete box that catches the beach after the hurricane swept away the sand. How still he stands before he lifts into the heavy air, rolling his wings once and

Her Play Vroom-vroom! Pushing a toy bus she disturbs my thoughts’ quiet with her prattle. I’d have lain untroubled as a mule slipped from the halter, tugging up the roots of clover with their tangled clods hung unmeaning, broken up and shifting down my chin. I would have missed seeing the day intrude through the shutters, shining here and there between her shoulders and her golden hair, the light as clear as language when she

Over the past month, Senator Ben Sasse (R- NE), recently dubbed “the most interesting man in Washington,” has created a buzz with his newly published book, The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis– and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance, mainly because it talks about more than his next reelection campaign. Among other things, the book bemoans the demise of a virtuous citizenry, a lackluster work ethic among millennials, and the shortcomings of an

And then the crowd roars And then the crowd roars– but why are they roaring? What are they roaring for? When you repeat a word like roaring several times it starts to come undone inside your head. It turns inside out, or upside down and lurches side to side without explanation. Before you can speak or look, the whole thing’s over. Like conviction meaning proves a co-dependent thing. The shape of the sound the shape

Last light is leaping from hill to hill spilling like liquid from an upset cup, A golden haze spreading o’er rock and rill until, until, until the valley has its fill and the glory thins and wavers and is taken up     The clouds’ creamy bronze hues drain clear, drop by drop—suddenly they run ashen grey in an eye-blink, in the drip of a tear giving way to darkness, uncertainty, and fear as the

Because of joy I am exposed 2 Samuel 6:16-23 When God has brought me home to Him by coming home to me, I will be unable to listen to you, even if you weep. I have to go and thank Him. God has come into the city of my soul; each breath is like an exile freed. The truth no longer grieves me. My laughter is like tambourines. I will continue to dance with swinging

Spirits crying in the darkness that Salvation is at hand Proclaiming to the captives The day of the Lord Songs in the night cause Doors to open Chains to fall off Veils to tear down Foundations to be shaken And earthquakes Prisoners are set free And escape by Staying put and Singing along- Where else to go? There was the word of life They could not save themselves In death’s despair One calls for enlightenment

the end of the cigarette i smoked a cigarette today and drank a glass of milk set on a log both i and the milk were beading sweat now and then i leaned the column of the cigarette against a flake of bark that used to generate the very life of this tree now a log i sat on indifferent to me in the yellow sunlight the cigarette was from a yellow pack with a