By Laura Stevenson What have you looked at today? What have you seen? Is there a difference between what you have looked at and what you have seen? Within the last year I have researched topics related to vision and perception. While most may think looking and seeing can be used interchangeably, there is a… Continue Reading
Category Archives: civablog
Remember, You Are Dust
By Victoria Emily Jones Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris. “Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This dictum from the Ash Wednesday liturgy, taken from God’s words to Adam in Genesis 3:19, is the starting point for Lent. Pronounced by the priest as he or she… Continue Reading
Altars of Reconciliation
By Erin Shaw As long as I can remember, I’ve had one foot in two worlds: I am both a citizen of the Chickasaw nation and a seventh-generation follower of Jesus. It’s been the work of my life to live in that tension and as best I can, understand and reconcile it. Altars of Reconciliation… Continue Reading
Cleaning Moby Dick – Books as Multimedia
By Josh deLacy When I need to see a book without reading it, I’ll spin the page upside down so the letters look like cuneiform and the ideas fall out. I’ll spread pens, highlighters, and half a ream of upside-down manuscript across a table and flip through it without reading a single word. Each page… Continue Reading
Movement Imagined: Historical Perspectives
By Lawan Glassock How do we see movement in art when in reality it is still? As seen from Classical to Modernism, there are certain qualities of art that are able to convey an imagined movement. Historically artists have accepted to a large extent, the inherent static nature of their work and contented themselves with… Continue Reading
Kanye’s Epiphany
By Will Montei Sing every hourEvery minuteEvery secondSing each and every millisecondWe need YouWe need YouWe need YouOh, we need YouSing ‘til the power of the Lord comes down– “Every Hour,” Kanye West Told people God was my missionWhat have you been hearin’ from the Christians?They’ll be the first one to judge meMake it feel… Continue Reading
Storing Our Tears
By Micah Behr After a house fire claimed most of my possessions and temporarily displaced my housemate and me earlier this year, I noticed that I wasn’t feeling the sense of loss that one might naturally feel after a significant life event like a fire. I traced part my lack of grief back to the… Continue Reading
An Advent Visio Divina
By John Skillen During the season of Advent, I keep handy a photograph of my favorite painting of the Nativity from the Renaissance: the altarpiece in the family chapel of Francesco Sassetti in the church of Santa Trinità in Florence, featuring the Adoration of Baby Jesus by three tender-faced shepherds. The infant lies on the… Continue Reading
Making Home in the Negative Space
By Steven Homestead “And this shall be a sign unto you; You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” Through these words, God invites us into this season, offering richness and mystery through sign and symbol. In the manger, I find an opening to explore our faith and think about… Continue Reading
Padraic Colum Evokes Gratitude
By Sharon Chace Seldom, if ever, has a poem struck me on a first reading with as much import as did Padraic Colum’s An Old Woman of the Roads. Unlike the unnamed woman in the poem who longed to have a little house, my husband and I actually own a little house. This old woman… Continue Reading