Holy Week reminds us, in case we're in danger of forgetting, that Christianity is a historical faith, its claims embedded in the messy particulars of time and place even as it transcends them. To celebrate that "curious contingency"—and to mark the beginning of National Poetry Month—here is a poem by T. M. Moore:
A Curious Contingency
Confessions of a Wordsmith
The modern order is largely a product of contingency. - Stephen Jay Gould
The fruits of my vocation blossom from
a kind of cosmic soup of latent power:
books, note cards, memos, shreds and shards of some
fresh-excavated pile or file; an hour
on this, an hour on that—the only plan
a loose and highly opportunistic scheme,
a kind of curious contingency more than
a plan: so my haphazard style must seem
to some—things finished, in the works, or just
not ever put away, the sediment
of labors past now buried beneath the dust
of new endeavors. An unlikely bent
for one whose work insists on forms, designs,
and arguments tight as a sonnet's lines.
History Repeats Itself, Sort of | How the fate of Eugene McCarthy's insurgency against LBJ sheds light on the 2004 presidential campaign. (Feb. 16, 2004)
The Worst President Ever? | Former Nixon aide John Dean attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of Warren G. Harding. (Feb. 09, 2004)
Wholly, Wholly, Wholly | Calvinists and conga drums in Grand Rapids: a report from the seventeenth annual Calvin Symposium on Worship and the Arts. (Feb. 02, 2004)
The Doom of Choice | Fate, free will, and moral responsibility in Tolkien. (Feb. 02, 2004)
A Rose Among Thorns | A new novel by the author of Father Elijah illumines the spiritual consequences of our simplest decisions. (Jan. 26, 2004)
Baptized in Fire | A new book on Martin Luther King, Jr., emphasizes his spiritual transformation. (Jan. 19, 2004)
Urban Eden | In City: Urbanism and Its End, a new history of New Haven, Connecticut, the city (in its late 19th-century form) is an ambiguous heaven-and the suburbs that relentlessly followed are hell. Which leaves us where, exactly? (Dec. 01, 2003)
Faith, Hope, and Charity in North Carolina | New novels by Michael Morris—whose first novel, A Place Called Wiregrass, was a word-of-mouth hit— and Jan Karon, who continues her beloved Mitford saga. (Nov. 17, 2003)
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
More than a million unused IVF embryos are in cryostorage. Are they the next pro-life frontier?
Adults with intellectual disabilities can have robust spiritual lives. Are we learning from them?
