Category: Reading Nook
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The Book Thief: Ugly and Beautiful
“The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the…
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The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Radical Hospitality
“The gospel coming with a house key is ABC Christianity. Radically ordinary and daily hospitality is the basic building block for vital Christian living.” -Rosaria Butterfield, pp. 220 What is radical hospitality? Is it daily table fellowship? An open door ready to receive guests at any time? A ministry of bringing meals to those in…
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As Freedom Is A Breakfast Food: Love According to E.E. Cummings
“but love is the sky and I am for you/ just so long and long enough“- E.E. Cummings E.E.Cummings’s poem, “as freedom is a breakfast food” is a poem full of nonsense lines and witty turns of phrase. It’s my favorite poem, and has been since I first read it about two years ago. I…
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American Son: A Poetry Book Review
“We cry for grief/ a long cry for grief/ America cries for we/ daughters and sons/ growing like grains of wheat in a dry and weary land/ put the tears to use/ redeem these wicked years” (Dante Alexander Wilcox, American Son) When I saw a couple weeks ago that a fellow NGU alum, Dante Wilcox,…
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Frankenstein, His Monster, and Moral Responsibility
“You are in the wrong, ” replied the fiend; “and instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am miserable. . . You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me?” (Frankenstein,…
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Kafka’s Metamorphosis: The Transformation of a Family
When Gregor Samsa wakes up as a cockroach in Franz Kafka’s short story, Metamorphosis, the reader is left wondering how and why such a thing occurred. The characters themselves, however, seem to have little concern about how the change happened and instead focus solely on how to respond. Gregor seems to accept his new lot…
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“Inception of a Brigade”: The Truth of Scripture in Question
“They hold on to their beliefs, even though all other men oppose them. But I’m for religion that is tolerant of the times and not a threat to my safety. They are for Religion when he dresses in rags and is considered contemptible. But I am for him when he walks in his silver slippers,…
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Biblical Femininity in How to Train Your Dragon 3
While watching How to Train Your Dragon 3, I realized the movie includes a great example of Biblical femininity, specifically of Biblical submission. As women in a society of independence and equality, we don’t like the idea of submission; the old-fashioned ideal of a subservient wife clashes with our vision of female strength. As Christian women,…
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Borges’s “The Witness”: Memory’s Preservation
“Events far-reaching enough to people all space, whose end is nonetheless tolled when one man dies, may cause us wonder. But something, or an infinite number of things, dies in every death, unless the universe is possessed of a memory, as the theosophists have supposed” (Jorge Borges, The Witness). What is memory? Malleable, imperfect memory,…
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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: The Art of Being Present
“This is it, I think, this is it, right now, the present, this empty gas station, here, this western wind, this tang of coffee on the tongue, and I am patting this puppy, I am watching the mountain. And the second I verbalize this awareness in my brain, I cease to see the mountain or…