Saturday Good Reads

It’s Halloween, and Chris Yokel asks why ghost stories and tells a tale a Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Rod Dreher at American Conservative has been telling the story all week of the Catholic liberal theologians who wrote a letter to The New York Times, protesting a column on Pope Francis by Catholic Ross Douthat. The pixels are flying all over the place; Dreher decided to take a look at one of the academics who signed the letter, and it’s amazing what passes for adacemic scholarship these days.

Good poetry – good stories about writing – and a wake-up call about Planned Parenthood.

And the Piano Guys do what only the Piano Guys can do – combine a fight song with Amazing Grace, way up in Scotland.

Halloween

Why Ghost Stories? and The Spiritual Quest of Jack Skellington – Chris Yokel.

Top Ten Spooky Poems for Halloween – Lyla Lindquist at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Poetry

Through the Windy – Robbie Pruitt.

Perfect Dragonfly – A Cento – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

The Seven Types of Poetry – Robert Peake at Huffington Post Books.

After the Exile – Corey Mesler at Curator Magazine.

Sylvia Plath Reading Her Poems – via Englewood Review of Books.

Writing

Five Minutes with Peter Ackroyd – BBC News.

The Writing Life Podcast: Never, Never, Never Sit on a Story – Ann Kroeker.

Tiny Distractions and Silent Vows – Mick Silva.

A Sincere Thank You – My Final Post – Matt Appling at The Church of No People.

She’s So Lovely – Travis Thrasher at The Journey is Everything.

Photography

The Champion Table Build, Part 3: Leg Joinery – Jack Baumgartner at The School of the Transfer of Energy.

Fall Hydrangea – Tim Good.

Faith

Why Study Academic Theology? – Rod Dreher at American Conservative.

When God Goes Away, Superstition Takes His Place – The American Interest.

Refugee Stories: The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back – David Rupert at Red-Letter Believers.

On Revivalist Christianity – Owen White at The Ochlophobist.

Can I Love My Children Enough to Let Them Fail? – Shawn Smucker.

Planned Parenthood

This is Your Wake-Up Call – Betsey Childs Howard at First Things.

Amazing Grace – Scottish Style

Top photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.