Poet and literature professor Scott Cairns ran headlong into his midlife crisis a fairly common experience among men nearing the age of fifty while walking on the beach with his Labrador. His was not a desperate attempt to recapture youth, filled with sports cars and younger women. Instead, Cairns realized his spiritual life was advancing at a snail's pace and time was running out. Midlife crisis for this this Baptist turned Eastern Orthodox manifested as a desperate need to seek out prayer. Originally published in 2007, this new edition ofShort Trip to the Edgeinclude photos,...
Poet and literature professor Scott Cairns ran headlong into his midlife crisis a fairly common experience among men nearing the age of fifty while wa...
"The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural use for it." -Simone Weil
"Like most people I, too, have been blindsided by personal grief now and again over the years. And I have an increasingly keen sense that, wherever I am, someone nearby is suffering now.
For that reason, I lately have settled in to mull the matter over, gathering my troubled wits to undertake a difficult essay, more like what we used to call an assay, really--an earnest inquiry. I am thinking of it just now as a...
"The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural use for it." ...
A new collection from one of our favorite poets. Fourteen "Idiot Psalms," surrounded by dozens of other poems, make this his most challenging collection yet. "Idiot Psalm 1" O God Beloved if obliquely so, dimly apprehended in the midst of this, the fraught obscuring fog of my insufficiently capacious ken, Ostensible Lover of our kind-while apparently aloof-allow that I might glimpse once more Your shadow in the land, avail for me, a second time, the sense of dire Presence in the pulsing hollow near the heart. Once more, O Lord, from Your Enormity incline your Face to shine upon Your...
A new collection from one of our favorite poets. Fourteen "Idiot Psalms," surrounded by dozens of other poems, make this his most challenging collecti...
First published in hardcover as Love's Immensity, this powerful book of selections from the mystics East and West, rendered into poetry, is now available in paperback for the first time.
First published in hardcover as Love's Immensity, this powerful book of selections from the mystics East and West, rendered into poetry, is now availa...
What role should ambition play in our lives? Our culture generally buys the American Dream that yes, we can fulfill all our aspirations. But to seek personal power and fame in the competitive world of Western culture has a dark side. Ambition can be subtle and enticing, leading to great unhappiness. Questions about ambition are more urgent now than they have ever been. What is ambition, exactly, and is it okay to be ambitious? What part does self-esteem play in personal growth and productivity? Can the ego's drive to get ahead and make a name for oneself lead to obsession or a growing...
What role should ambition play in our lives? Our culture generally buys the American Dream that yes, we can fulfill all our aspirations. But to seek p...
