other deepening places
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Originally posted on Malcolm Guite: image courtesy of Lancia Smith We come now, on Palm Sunday, to the beginning of Holy Week: a strange Palm Sunday, a strange Holy Week, in which we cannot make the outward and visible journeys and gestures, exchanges and gatherings that have always bodied forth the inner meaning of this…
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Oh, the joy of Gerard Manley Hopkins! I wish I could capture the beauty of nature in the rich imagery and luscious syntax of this master. As much as I love “Pied Beauty” and “God’s Grandeur,” this poem resonates the loudest with me. In a time when so many people compare themselves to the false…
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I grew up eating TV dinners and food out of boxes and cans. I knew more about junk food than “slow” food. But that all changed when I married my wife. I actually lost weight and learned that you could put more on a sub than just iceberg lettuce. Salads came alive with so many…
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Happy National Poetry Month! As we launch into this month-long celebration of poetry, there’s no better place to start than Billy Collins’s “Introduction to Poetry.” I don’t believe there’s another poet I enjoy listening to as much as I love hearing Billy Collins read his poetry. “Litany” was one of the first times I encountered…
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Spring is in the air! Here in Western Pennsylvania today, the temperature reached 71 degrees. We opened the windows and savored the fresh air and song of the birds. It reminded me of a welcomed distraction from earlier this week when I sat down to breakfast: a finch singing from my neighbor’s porch. And though…
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On this auspicious day, allow me to submit my two favorite love poems. I teach these side-by-side in my British Literature course when we begin discussing the impact of relationships and romance on our lives. Unlike the allusion to Dickens’ classic A Tale of Two Cities, what I present here is NOT the best of…
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Sitting here in my library, I notice a book my wife has set out on one of the mini-easels propped up on the corner bookshelf: The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise by Robert Cardinal Sarah. I have never read the book myself, but its title speaks volumes to me. Silence is a…
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We’re a month away from Valentine’s Day, but it’s never too early to share some of the most beautiful love poetry ever written. Admittedly, the love poem I quote the most is Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116” followed closely by Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 43,” and who can speak of love poetry without noting that profound 27th…
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My first encounter with Malcolm Guite came when he visited Grove City College years ago. A poet-priest-musician, my heart echoed with his song. Though I did not get up to the chapel to see him face-to-face, multiple friends of the family brought me excerpts of his work. Years later, we now own multiple collections authored…
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For weeks now, there has been silence – the stationary pen that only marks the page of my journal when I nod off in bed. Some call it writer’s block; I call it “the dehydrated soul groping about in desert landscapes.” I feel like one of T. S. Eliot’s hollow men. I am a dried…
the deepening ground 