By Heidi Naylor
I went to the temple of Godand wrote Volodymyr Zelenskyyon the page over which the saints pray. My president, too. But just nowI can’t bear to say his name, and it wasdifficult to write. I knelt at the altar on behalf of childrenand parents, of married women and men.Their names unfamiliar, difficult to say.Their lives, …
By Heidi Naylor
Let the fire of the covenant which you made in the House of the Lord burn in your hearts, like flame unquenchable. – Brigham Young in the midnight hour,remind me how my fatherstood behind the gossamer curtain–touched my hands,my quaking shoulder—spoke the bequestand beckoned:spark,signal,everlastingsolace
By Alixa Brobbey
After the carpet sandpapered my knees,I stood, bruised, next to you. We scannedthe sky for stars I hoped to discern as your God.My eyes wavered between the freckled skyand your speckled face, unshaven and hungry.Debris darted past, but I hadn’t met the words,so I stayed silent. You said meteor shower, and told meto untrain my …
By Micah Cozzens
After a fit of prayer, I openmy journal and I am movedwith pity for myself, the sermonizing childof pious sires, the delighted aunt clinging, greedily,to indifferent nephews, the tired herderof distracted youth, the English teachermeasuring out a life in comma splices,all marked and annotated to what end?The students change, the problems remain,and the Bible always …
By Sharlee Mullins Glenn
Take me to the church of broken thingswhere faith is fragile as egg shellsand people enter, limping and weary,with hanging hands and hungry eyes. Take me to the church of broken thingswhere no one has glib answers,but everyone is seen—battered,and beautiful, and exquisitely brave. Take me to the church of broken thingswhere unbound Jesus-love, insistentas …
By Sarah Colby
If I were called uponto construct a religionit would be of fire.Of the slender-beamed candledeep in the wildernessthat shall be a beaconfor weary pilgrims.Of the altar of flameswhere they shall make of their burdensan offering. Each unkind sin,every impurity, all things unholy.And they shall make of themselvesalso an offering, whereuponice shall boiland stars ignitebut they …
By Lorraine Jeffery
Does God still weep forthe lost third?We of the two-thirdsknow of His tears for us,for those who may not return. Surely His brows furrowfor what we might have been. But are His wrenching sobs savedfor the thirdwho will never be?
By Melonie Cannon
She who has eyes to see, let her seethe shape of Godsettled in the crook of a treea clean fish bonea pomegranate lifted to lipsthe pelvis of a woman She turns vertical a sunflower seed,the eye of Horus-a bold ichthys-and sees a Venn Diagram of an upturned bowl of starslayer upon layerof the Milky Wayfoldedinto …
By Melonie Cannon
As ifI could find metaphorsfor Godor Griefor the way a heart shreds in on itselfand tries to mend again,I pick up the penhoping that an angel with wide wingswill clasp it and form the words for methat will heal or praise or claimmy broken placein the Universeas holy space. Holybecause oceans have parted thererivers cleaved …
By Tricia Cope
You were born in the night,all flesh and fists andfuzz. Warm breathon my neck. Whisperedlullabies. I named you and taught you to namethings. Bird. Book. Bread. God.Only now that you are grownI tell you the truth. That lifeboils over the rim of this world. I scarcely rememberthe old songs. The shapeof your body curledinto mine. …