The Story of Sharks
If you have a fear of the sharks that reside in our oceans today, you may not want to click over to see what their predecessors looked like. But we think you’d miss out on a fascinating read: how sharks have survived many global shifts, the odd features of their ancient species, and the megalodon that “made the great white shark look like a goldfish in comparison.”
The Likeness of God
Realism in portraiture is not fashionable in modern art. And yet, there’s innate theological value in displaying likeness in portraiture, as a Mockingbird essay reflecting on the work of Christian painter Catherine Prescott finds:
Second-century church father Irenaeus, who had perhaps too much to say on the topic of the image and likeness of God, suggested that even though we often think that the Son of God was made in the image of man, the truth is that man was made in the image and likeness of the begotten, not made Son of God. The Son of God (alias: the Word) shows us who we were modeled after and restores us to our intended likeness.
Looking through Prescott’s portraits, we think you’ll say, Amen.
On the Torsion of Species
“Life is a mess,” says David Kaplan in the beginning of his latest “In Theory” video for Quanta magazine. A beautiful, extravagant mess. We’d love to organize organisms into simple boxes called species. But the more we learn, the harder that is to do. You’d think that genetic analysis would help us draw clearer lines. But no.
Honorable Mentions: Autumn Poems
We wholeheartedly agree with L. M. Montgomery’s character Anne Shirley when she says, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t they give you a thrill—several thrills?”
Autumn makes poets out of us all, which means we had a number of delightful fall poems to choose from for this issue. Here are some of them:
“Day in Autumn,” Rainer Maria Rilke “October” and “After Apple-Picking,” Robert Frost “September, 1918,” Amy Lowell “Autumn Psalm,” Jacqueline Osherow
And from a fall 2014 issue of The Behemoth: “Hurrahing in Harvest,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins (and the accompanying essay we published with it).
