Some Monday Readings - April 13, 2026

Joe the Hero – Mark Oppenheimer at The Dispatch. 

A Wonder Is What It Is – Nick Offerman at WNYC reads ‘A Warning to My Readers’ by Wendell Berry.

 

The Man Who Read Everything: Letters of Harold Bloom and six poets – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

The BBC needs competition – James Hodgkinson at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Easter Rising – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Redundancy in action – poem by Franco Amati at Garbage Notes.

 

Two Critical Author Actions – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

St. Mary’s and the Putney Debates of 1647 – A London Inheritance.

 

Cockney Ding Dong – Spitalfields Life.

 

Photograph: Critic Harold Bloom.

Run to them

After Matthew 28:1-20 

Run to them, Mary,

run to the ones who

ran away in fear.

 

Run to them, Mary,

to tell them what

you have seen.

 

Run to them, Mary.

to tell them to find me

where it all began.

 

Run to them, Mary,

to tell them to find me

in Galilee.

 

Run to them, Mary,

to tell them to meet

me there, there where

it all begins again.

 

Photograph by Benjamin Recinos via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

2 Reasons to Remember That You Are Called – Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

 

Normal Life – Seth Lewis.

 

Random Thoughts on Being a Dad – Tim Challies.

 

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, poem by Wendell Berry – Matt Wheeler at Rabbit Room Poetry.

The one who escaped

After Matthew 28:1-20 

The one who escaped

the life from before,

the one who wiped

his feet with her hair,

the one scorned and

reviled, is the one

who goes to the tomb

that day. The earth 

shakes with a roar;

she stops and holds

on to her companion.

The guards at the tomb

are terrified, trembling

in fear, frozen like

statues at what they

all can see: the one

in glowing white. 

Like so many times

before, the angel

says do not be afraid.

The one you seek is

not here. The one

you seek has risen.

See the empty shroud.

Go, tell.

 

The one who escaped

the life before sees,

and believes, and runs

to obey. As they run,

another stops them,

and greets them, and

says do not be afraid,

go and tell them

to find me in Galilee.

 

Photograph by Pisit Heng via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

How eggs became the symbol of Easter – Jane Stannus at The Spectator.

 

Kierkegaard on Easter Weekend – Rod Dreher at Rod Dreher’s Diary.

 

Britain will not be a “Christian country” without Christians – Ben Sixsmith at The Critic Magazine.

 

Who Believes in Easter Anymore? – poem by James Tweedie at Society of Classical Poets.

A Sonnet for Easter Dawn - Malcolm Guite.

Things Worth Remembering: John Donne's Sermon on the Resurrection of the Body and the Immortality of the Soul - Douglas Murray at The Free Press. 

Two Beautiful Lenten Devotionals

The beginning of Lent – Ash Wednesday – falls on Valentine’s Day this year. I’m not sure if there’s a subliminal message there or not, but the Lenten season is soon upon us. And two recently published resources might be, and should be, of some interest.

Women Who Followed Jesus: 40 Devotions on the Journey to Easter (Paraclete Press) by Dandi Daley Mackall may seem primarily for women, but I also found it an intriguing resource for a general audience. For each day of Lent, beginning with Ash Wednesday, Mackall has Bible verses, a fictional story grounded in the verses, and a few questions for reflection and deeper study.

 

The Biblical women included in the entries are Mary Magdalene; Mary, the mother of Jesus; Susanna; Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza; the Samaritan woman at the well; Mary of Bethany; Martha; and Salome, the mother of James and John. Each has multiple entries; Mary Magdalene has the most with 10, followed by Mary the mother of Jesus with eight. 

 

Little is known about several of the women; Susanna, for example has a single reference in the Gospel of Luke and Joanna has only two; both were among the women who had been healed by Jesus, traveled with him and the disciples, and supported his ministry. But there’s enough to make some educated guesses as to their personalities and how they fit into Jesus’s ministry. 

Dandi Daley Mackall

Mackall has published more than 500 books for adults and children. She’s a speaker at writer workshops, conferences, women’s meetings, and young author events. She’s also been interviewed on television, radio, podcasts, and blogs about writing and her books, which have won numerous awards. She lives with her family in Ohio.

 

Paraclete has also published Season of Beauty: A Lent and Easter Treasury of Readings, Poems, and Prayers. It’s illustrated with classic paintings by well-known artists, which by themselves are worth considering as Lent and Easter devotionals. (a personal favorite painting in the book, “The Straight Path” by Nicholas Roerich, is depicted above.) It’s a small (143 pages) but physically beautiful book.

 

The poems and readings have been written by such authors as Louisa May Alcott, Hildegard of Bingen, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Merton, William Cowper, the Psalms, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Christina Rossetti, Julian of Norwich, Luci Shaw, Rainer Maria Rilke, Saint Patrick, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Saint Francis, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Bronte, John Greenleaf Whittier, William Wordsworth, Charles Wesley, and many others.

 

One of the entries is this first-millennium Celtic prayer:

 

You are the peace of all things calm

You are the place to hide from harm

You are the light that shines in the dark

You are the heart’s eternal spark

You are the door that’s open wide

You are the guest who waits inside

You are the stranger at the door

You are the calling of the poor

You are my Lord and with me still

You are my love, keep me from ill

You are the light, the truth, the way

You are my Savior this very day

 

Both books make wonderful resources for the Lenten and Easter season.

 

Top illustration: The Straight Path, watercolor (1912) by Nicholas Roerich; Nizhny Novgorod State Museum of Fine Arts, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. 

 

Some Monday Readings

 

White Noise – poem by Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

 

Out of Egypt: 50 Holy Wells #17 – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

She remains

After John 20:1-18 

She finds the tomb empty,

the stone rolled away,

and she runs to tell

the others. They run

to the tomb and see

the cloths of linen,

wrappings of the body,

but the body gone.

They leave, but

she remains.

 

She remains, weeping,

until she sees the figures

in white, sitting

in the tomb. She speaks,

they respond. And she 

turns to see a man, 

perhaps the gardener;

she sees them, and then

she sees him.

 

Her first words after:

“I have seen Him,

I have seen the Lord.”

Because she remained.

 

Photograph by Kiwi Thompson via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads - April 16, 2022

It’s Easter weekend. We’ve had Holy or Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and tomorrow is Easter Sunday. In between is the overlooked day – what some refer to as “Holy Saturday.”  

John Robert Lee has a poem, “Gethsemani,” about Holy Thursday at Kingdom Poets. 

 

Malcolm Guite has a series of 12 sonnets about the 12 Stations of the Cross for Good Friday. 

 

Cort Gatliff at Mere Orthodoxy talks about death and life on Holy Saturday. 

 

The Critic Magazine has a feature about looking to the lesson of the Passion as we confront radical evil in the Ukraine. 

 

And Des Smith at The Gospel Coalition asks if Easter is believable.

 

More Good Reads

 

Poetry

 

Fishing with Ted Hughes – Alex Diggins at The Critic Magazine.

 

Rendering Ruins – Leland James at Society of Classical Poets. 

 

Faith

 

Does Evangelicalism Have a History? – Michael Reeves at Crossway.

 

40 Random Pieces of Advice for the Christian Life – Tim Challies.

 

A Time of Gifts – Rod Dreher at The American Conservative.

 

Writing and Literature

 

The Literary Greats of Scotland – Paige Shelton at CrimeReads.

 

A Surprisingly Therapeutic Reading of Cormac McCarthy – Zach Hollifield at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Never Trust a Publisher – The Secret Author at The Critic Magazine.

 

How Dostoevsky’s Exile in Siberia Led to Four of the Greatest Novels in Literature – Kevin Birmingham at Literary Hub.

 

Ukraine

 

Putin’s Attack on Ukraine is an Attack on Its Language – Kateryna Kalytko at Literary Hub.

 

The Sins of Russia – Vladimir Solovyov at Church Life Journal.

 

The war in Ukraine: how often must history repeat itself? – Maria Shust at The Art Newspaper.

 

Russia’s Tsushima moment: Putin’s regime is suffering from an old problem — imperial overreach – Peter Caddick-Adams at The Critic Magazine.

 

Ukrainian Seminary Professor’s Plea—Please Don’t Tire of Praying – Jamie Dean at The Gospel Coalition.

 

News Media

 

White evangelicals, again: New York Times urgently probes praise music on political right – Terry Mattingly at Get Religion.

 

Coming Home – Drew & Ellie Holcomb

Painting: Charwomen in Theater, oil on canvas (1946) by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978). 

Just a few words

After Mark 16:1-13

A decision made to go

and anoint meets the reality

of a stone blocking the way.

“But who will move it

for us?” they ask.

A legitimate question, 

answered by the new reality:

the stone was already

rolled away. No one

needed to do it for them;

it was already done.

And inside the cave

they find a young man,

sitting calmly, waiting

for them, dressed

in white, and pointing

to the empty shroud.

His few words explain

and give direction

to the new reality.

The heavens had split,

the earth had shook,

the curtain had torn,

and now time itself

had cracked wide open.

Photograph by Robert Koorenny via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The fool finds wisdom

After I Corinthians 1:20

I went looking for the wise man,

I went looking for the scholar,

I went looking of the philosopher of this age.

I found ignorance clothed in pride,

I found lecture hall masquerades,

I found a fool locked away in his cage.

Turning east, toward the sun,

I sensed the singing of my heart

I found myself growing brave.

At the bottom of a hill,

Instead of wisdom I found love,

With a stone unrolled before a grave.

Photograph by David Sutton via Unsplash. Used with permission.

A day like any other

(dedicated to Paul Stolwyck)

A day like any other

begins in darkness enshrouded

in an envelope of silence,

the silence before life,

before light cracks

slightly, outlining

the stone

light wrapping the stone

light breaking the stone

The space behind is left

empty, particles of dust

filtering the lighted air,

enclosing a slab,

empty

a slab draped

in discarded shroud

            where is he

            where is my master

            where is my Lord

            where have they taken him

Risen.

Painting: After Night by Paul Bennett.