Issue 15: Aesthetics

Elizabeth Hoover

Inquiry: Detail

This is a second poem by Elizabeth Hoover that uses the photography of Saul Leiter as a source for meditative dialogue on the nature of an image.

Elizabeth Hoover

Inquiry: The Image

This poem by Elizabeth Hoover uses the photography of Saul Leiter as a source for a meditative dialogue on the nature of an image.

Jim Jewell

That Beauty May Flourish

In this essay, Jim Jewell exhorts us to see the beauty around us and then announces the creation of Flourish, a new nonprofit that works to integrate environmental stewardship with other church ministries.

Scott Sabin

Beauty on the Border

A reflection on the beauty of creation and redemption in the impoverished, agriculturally scarred towns along the Dominican Repulic and Haitian border.

Allison Smythe

The Novelist Sets to Work

I will make him with red hair and a fiery tongue I will give him a country and a century a limp and strong hands I will take his wife but give him a daughter lovely enough to break his heart and will send him across the sea where he will die an old man […]

Jen Grabarczyk-Turner, León Ferrari, Mira Schendel

Tangled Alphabets: An Aesthetic of Language

Tangled Alphabets, an exhibit currently on display at The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City, brings together the works of visual artist contemporaries León Ferrari and Mira Schendel in their visual exploration of language.

Karla Huston

Soap Woman

In this poem, Karla Huston contemplates a museum exhibit of a woman’s body that has turned to soap.

Laurie D. Russell

Redefining Beauty

This essay explores the origins of our definitions of beauty.

Jessie van Eerden

Seamless

In this lyrical essay, Jessie van Eerden reflects on her upbringing in a rural West Virginia church and wonders “if the words of our childhood faith-lives—words like worship, praise, holiness—have any real clout for us when we really stare them in the face as adults and when, out of the corner of our eyes, we see more and more brokenness in the world.”

Ben Lowe

Finding God on the St. Lucie

Enjoying and fostering beauty is an integral part of our role as stewards of God’s good creation; the author discusses his vision for Renewal, a grassroots college organization that attempts to foster this stewardship.

Susan Lilley

Dressing Sal Mineo by Susan Lilley

I watched Rebel Without a Cause on TV late one college night when I learned Sal Mineo was our next big draw at Once Upon a Stage dinner theatre. He would star in a stupid play about romantic entanglements, perfect for group sales and Sunday matinees filled with oldsters on field trips from the homes. […]