The Intersection of Faith and Culture
The outlook was bleak. As I lay hooked up to an IV in the city of Chongjin, I realized how much my mistake had cost me. I’d wasted all my money, lost my friends, abandoned my family, and turned my back on God. Now, at 23-years-old, I was going to […]
In college I bought into the pursuit of body perfection. I achieved goal after goal of shaping my body, thinking that if I looked better on the outside, something on the inside would feel complete. But nothing changed in my relationships, and the inner part of me felt frustrated and […]
She set the tray of freshly frosted Santa Claus cookies on the granite countertop and eyed me with solemn concern. “Funny hats make me suspicious of idolatry,” she said. This was the bluntest of my friends when I came home that Christmas with a sobering admission: I’d been attending an […]
But is that really fair? It was 1955. The beat poet Allen Ginsberg riffed aloud part of Howl, his profane and profound poem to an audience of artists and jazz heads in San Francisco’s Six Gallery. The word hipster was formally and artistically spoken for the first time. Howl was […]
I knew something was going on in my body. I felt tired. Two blood clots had developed in my legs. I was starting to bruise easily. Then, two days before Christmas, my doctor called: “It looks like you have leukemia. I’ve arranged for you to meet with the doctor at […]
“Blessed is the name, the name be blessed, written on my heart in burning letters. That’s all I know, I do not know the rest.” This may sound like a couple of lines from a poetic praise band, but instead this gem comes from 80-year-old folk poet Leonard Cohen. The […]
