by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor For most of my life, Christianity defined my experiences of meaning-making in this world. I was raised in the church, came to my own beliefs in high school and college, and shaped my understanding of the world around mine and others’ interpretations of the Bible. When I began to understand that my worldview was... Continue Reading →

by Geoff Watkinson In the opening pages of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, she asks the following question about creative living: “Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?” If someone had asked me that question a few years ago, I would have felt incredibly uncomfortable, not believed I... Continue Reading →

by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor If you’ll forgive me, I’m going to use this space to talk about myself, because I am both the subject I know the best and also—it sometimes seems—not at all. As these nonsermons are inspired by e.e. cummings’ nonlectures, I am drawn to his reasoning for spending so much time on the... Continue Reading →

Deep End At the local pool waiting in line to use the diving board, a young boy named Randell turned to me and probed his pinkie into his ear, producing a picayune ball of wax that he claimed to be his eardrum. “Go ahead,” he said, “scream into my ear. I can’t hear a thing.”... Continue Reading →

Fear Mindy was afraid her sister put spiders in her ear as she slept. She was afraid the spiders crawled inside the canal that led inside her. She was afraid one of the spiders was pregnant—baby spiders oozing from her ear like eight-legged lava. Mindy was afraid her father’s dead grandmother watched her as she... Continue Reading →

by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor In 1952, e.e. cummings was invited to Harvard for a series of what he referred to as nonlectures. From the outset, cummings clarified that he had no interest in the traditional lecture form: “Lecturing is presumably a form of teaching; and presumably a teacher is somebody who knows. I never did, and... Continue Reading →

Tamiami Trail   Call me salt bones stumbling from beach to beach looking for water clean enough to see my feet in. Not so dirty that I’m wondering if it’s the red or the green kind of bloom mucking it up. Not so dirty that if a shark decided I was her breakfast, I wouldn’t... Continue Reading →

At The 4th Of July Potluck The Year She Moves Back Home I suck the marrow from the chicken leg, slurp the devil from its eggs, swill it down with the good beer then make room for a sheet cake slice the size of a house shingle. All this while other ladies skirt the table,... Continue Reading →

Southern Hostess I hadn’t expected to get dumped. Especially while naked. Dumping a lover who lay beside you naked had to be about the lowest thing you could choose to do to somebody. The evenings Grandy hadn’t called, I wore T-shirts with Daffy Duck on them, pants with elastic waistbands, and my hair scraped back... Continue Reading →

by Anna Sandy-Elrod Books These are in no particular order. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead When I heard that Colson Whitehead had written a book about American slavery in which the metaphorical Underground Railroad was turned into a physical, working railway for slaves to escape to freedom, I had to buy it for the... Continue Reading →