Ezra Craker grew up in Grand Rapids, Mich., and graduated from Calvin University, where he studied writing, political science, and Spanish. He was a reporter and editor at Calvin’s newspaper, Chimes, and a staff member of the campus creative journal, Dialogue. During his time in college, he also interned at the independent literary publisher Tupelo Press and the Center for Public Justice, a public policy and civic education organization.
In his free time, Ezra enjoys reading, chatting about pop culture, and spreading the gospel of the aptly named Great Lakes.
Posts By This Author
What Good Is It To See the Whole World but Forfeit Our Souls?
Pilgrims gather for Christmas services at the rock-hewn Church of St. George (Biete Ghiorgis), the best known of the 11 monolithic churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia. / MWayOut / iStock
COMPLETELY BY COINCIDENCE, travel writer and translator Shahnaz Habib once joined thousands of pilgrims in Lalibela, Ethiopia. Habib’s trip happened to overlap with Ethiopian Christmas, which brings Ethiopian Orthodox Christians from across the country and world to the town, famous for its medieval rock-hewn churches.
Detailing her experience in her book Airplane Mode, a personal history of travel with a sharp eye for the colonial legacies in tourism, Habib calls Lalibela’s churches “marvels of subterranean engineering.” Carved from red volcanic rock, they sit embedded in the ground, connected by tunnels. The complex of structures was built in the 12th century as an homage to Jerusalem, complete with replicas of Christ’s Nativity crib and tomb.
Habib observed as her fellow travelers lined up around the churches to kiss crosses offered by priests: “A kiss at the top of the cross, a kiss at the bottom, a touch of the cross to the forehead. Hundreds of kisses every hour.” She noted the procedural quality of the ritual.
“To lose oneself in a crowd. To walk the beaten path. To wait and be bored,” she writes. “Perhaps what separates the tourist and the pilgrim is not the reasons for their travel but the satisfaction that the pilgrim finds in what frustrates the tourist.”
‘Orbital’ Offers a God’s-Eye View of Our Fragile Home
Grove Press
IN ONE OF her visions, the 14th-century mystic Julian of Norwich saw all of creation in the palm of her hand. She observed that it was round as a ball and small as a hazelnut. “I marvelled how it might last,” she wrote, “for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for little[ness].” In other words, she thought it might vanish for being so small.
This is the feeling that pervades Samantha Harvey’s lyrical novel Orbital, which follows six astronauts as they circle the Earth and conduct scientific research. Hailing from various countries, they experience together a God’s-eye view of the planet they left behind. Continents roll past, political borders disappear, and a sense of urgency emerges. In a way only astronauts can, they absorb the simultaneous vitality and fragility of their collective home and reckon with the human-caused calamities that threaten it.
‘Dune: Part Two’ Unmasks the Danger of Prophecies
'Dune: Part Two,' Warner Brothers
Though Paul might be a Christ, an “anointed one,” he’s no Jesus. His road does not lead to a Roman cross. Instead of forfeiting power, he’s supposed to accumulate it.
Sojourners’ Top Movies and TV Shows of 2023
Graphic by Mitchell Atencio / Sojourners
At their strongest, films and TV shows can help us pay attention to — and by extension, love — the people and the world around us.
Christmas Is Canceled in Bethlehem, Say Palestinian Christians
A view shows the deserted area outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Oct. 11, 2023. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
At a vigil for peace in Washington, D.C., this Tuesday, Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac spoke about the approaching Christmas season in his home of Bethlehem in the West Bank.
“How can we celebrate when we feel this war — this genocide — that is taking place could resume at any moment?” he said.
The Queer, Christian Yearning of Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens performing at the Sydney Opera House during the Vivid Festival. Joshua Windsor / Alamy
It’s clear why fans created the once popular but now defunct Facebook page,“Is This Sufjan Stevens Song Gay Or Just About God?” But Stevens’ music has never been either gay or about God. It’s indivisibly gay and about God.