Letter to the Editor: Having been a woman in the same shoes with the same struggles of regret for 19 years now, it has been of major comfort to remember Revelations 12: 10, that Satan is ...
Letters in the Ides of What Rhymes with Starch
Entirely Out of Reach
“He was rejected by the chief priests and scribes, and in a travesty of justice, executed—just like so many other prophets before Him. But this time something went desperately wrong, at least from the perspective of the Establishment Men. This time, the executed prophet did something no one else had been able to do: come back from the dead. This made Him very difficult to deal with. Now He is ruling from the right hand of the Father, and is entirely out of their reach.”
American Milk and Honey, p. 182
Pious Corpses
“Father, I pray for grace that’s unsettling.
I pray for grace that disrupts all the things.
I pray for the creative destruction of grace . . .
Father, Your Son did not call us to follow,
To take up our cross and to follow to death
In order to line the floor with our pious corpses.”
21 Prayers, p. 77
Abortion Regret
Dear Angela, Thank you for writing to me, and I am very sorry about your distress. I hope that the Lord can use some of what I write here to bring you some measure of comfort. I do know that the comfort ...
If All Goes According to Plan
“Up to this point, this book has resembled a jumbled box of different colored tiles. This last chapter is the place where you are supposed to be able to see the mosaic. Let us shake hands all around and wish each other luck.”
American Milk and Honey, p. 181
One Desire or the Other
“I ask for the death of all wants demented,
And all our desires that risk being bent,
And for a good resurrection of the true, godly wanting,
A godly desire, a yearning that’s holy.”
21 Prayers, p. 74
I Mean, Really Unacceptable
Entirely Out
“Take away from us now all false opinions,
And please bring to light all shifts and evasions.
If envy remains in any dark place,
Have mercy on us—pull it up and all out.”
21 Prayers, p. 71
Why and Who Says?
“Why should men be free? Why should they be treated with equity? Why should we govern ourselves democratically? The answers will vary depending on whether you believe that we evolved out of the primordial goo, or whether the Creator God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, put us here. They will vary according to whether you believe in the Supreme Court or the Supreme Being. Religions don’t do well suspended in mid-air. Why should men be free? Who makes them free? How can they be free when they are slaves to sin?”
American Milk & Honey, p. 178
Neither Unitarian Option
“But Christians who worship the triune God will refuse to worship any idol, whether it is the nerdy monad of the liberal bedwetters, or the gonad monad of the American neocons.”
American Milk & Honey, pp. 176-177)