Dane Lyn's "holy musings at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2019" is a brilliant work of ekphrastic poetry, inspired by a religious painting by an unknown artist, titled "The Great Harlot of Babylon".
Tag: religion
Pamela Wax – Capricorn Loses His Star
Poet and rabbi Pamela Wax's poem touches upon the themes of sacrifice, tragedy, regret, and atonement.
Angelic Armendariz – Nonbeliever
Angelic Armendariz, with her poem "Nonbeliever", gives readers a brief but poignant piece with three distinct stages in questioning faith, spirituality, and God.
Leaving
BY MICHELLE NICHOLAYSEN When I left the Seventh-day Adventists, I thought I could keep the love and forget the wrath.
Lori Rottenberg – Heresy
Lori Rottenberg wrote her poem, Heresy, when her children were young and she was a stay-at-home mom.
“You Can’t Pray a Lie” – Mark Twain’s Huck Finn
Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn suggests that evil is not something manifested by wicked people, rather it perpetuates with the conventions that we absorb from childhood.
Raymond P. Hammond – F Train
"While I often found the emergence from the dark of the tunnel shocking, as my eyes would adjust and I would look forward and skyward, I always found this image to be comforting, reassuring."
Simone Weil – The Infinite in an Instant
Simone Weil lauds 'unmixed attention', which she likens to prayer, and reflects on the quality of attention, expressed as 'patience, effort and method' to 'understand with our whole self the truths which are evident.'
The One Motive Power in the Universe
In this extract from an essay about bhakti and devotional love written in the late 19th century, Swami Vivekananda - the 19th century spiritual reformist and teacher of Vedanta who was instrumental in popularizing Hinduism and yoga in the west - makes the difference between empty religious ritual and the burning desire for union with God, which is as real as any hunger or thirst.
Does Spirituality Need Religion? – Rabbi Rami
Rabbi Rami addresses the question of spirituality and its relationship to religion, and the way in which the two realities interact and support one another.