Thank you for focusing on natural childbirth ("Reclaiming Childbirth," by Shafia M. Monroe, December 2010).
Departments
Noel Julnes-Dehner 2-01-2011
My husband, he die
without water in desert.
Walking Saudi Arabia --
no jobs in Yemen
for policemen
from Somalia.
Peg Conway 2-01-2011
As a mother of three, former doula, and active Catholic, I've long felt the disconnection between birthing and faith.
Walter Brueggemann 2-01-2011
We enter into a season focused on Christ’s human possibility as a defiant alternative to the human self proposed by the dominant values of our culture.
Robert Palin 2-01-2011
Reading Walter and June Wink's interview with Steve Holt ("Confronting the Powers," December 2010) brought back blessed memories of their warmth, humor, intelligence, and love of life while they at
Jaime Horst 2-01-2011
In the 18 months since I trained as a doula, I have become quite aware that, too often, birth loses its sacredness in a hospital setting.
Richard Ikenberry 2-01-2011
Regarding "The Theology of the Tea Party" (by Jim Wallis, November 2010): I have felt for a long time that libertarian thinking, as well as ultra right-wing conservatism, are not consistent with Ne
Rob Soley 1-01-2011
My strokes are halting, not like the imagined fluidity
of the monastic scribes, hunched, by candlelight,
over some ancient text, perhaps the Our Father,
being deftly rendered in the thin black liquid
of a gently dipped quill.
From their sublime to my ridiculous work
in colored calligraphy markers
purchased at the local drugstore.
But my text is the same, the Our Father;
except mine is printed on the inside jacket
of the pocket edition of a scriptural rosary book,
printed and published a mere forty years ago.
Walter Brueggemann 1-01-2011
Epiphany is the exhibit of Jesus in the world. The early church was utterly enthralled by Jesus, but did not find it so easy to characterize him. The early followers found that, in his radicality, he outran all of their explanatory categories. But they had to bear witness to him.
For that reason the early church readily appealed to the promissory texts of the Old Testament and found that they anticipated his coming. In the prophetic promises of Isaiah and Jeremiah they found expectations of Jesus. The early church found guidance and comfort in the ancient psalms that celebrated God’s role in lyrical doxology, that acknowledged God as light, and that commanded a neighborly life in the world.
After prophetic promise and psalmic solace and guidance, the church issued its own evangelical conviction that Jesus is the beloved of God, the Word become flesh, the light of the world. They piled up images and phrases, because none was fully adequate to the wonder of his presence. And after all of that imaginative rhetoric, they concluded that it comes down to conduct that reflects his intent. After all of the talk about Jesus, there is the walk. The early church was summoned to a new righteousness, to bold decisions, to vulnerability in the world that attested the new governance of Jesus. Since then, the church has been coming to terms with the reality of Jesus, the one with whom God is well pleased.
Ryan Fowler 12-01-2010
I was surprised and disappointed when I saw the cover and read "Why Glenn Beck Hates Community Organizers" (by Danny Duncan Collum, September-October 2010).
Rob F. Murphy 12-01-2010
"We have to listen and observe," notes Jennifer Hope Kottler, when writing about energy issues ("Two Ears, Two Eyes, One Voice," August 2010).