Best of 2020, Part One: Writers’ Picks
This year’s entire catalog is proof that even pandemics and poisonous politics can be spun, however feebly, into something worth reading.
Josh Parks graduated from Calvin in 2018 with majors in English and music, and he has since earned master’s degrees from Western Michigan University and Princeton Theological Seminary. This fall, he’s starting a PhD in religious studies at the University of Virginia (so his plans to be in school forever are working well). When not writing, he can be found learning the alto recorder, watching obscure Disney movies, and making excruciating puns.
Reading and Breathing
The unheard deserve hearing, the unsafe deserve safety, the forgotten deserve our imagination.
Praise Ye the God of Gold
How many times have Christians, distracted by their frantic, sixteenth-note lives, mistaken idolatry for piety?
Which Disney Villain is Donald Trump?
That point aside, though, Trump doesn’t have Maleficent’s stoicism, Mother Gothel’s manipulative skills, or Ursula’s show-stopping stage presence.
The Ballad of the AeroPress
I asked the fair barista, “Sir,
Have you the stock I seek?”
“Alas,” said he, “our shelves are bare,
And will be for a week.”
Arvo Pärt’s Musical Breastplate
A Deer’s Cry therefore asks us to reconsider our assumptions about divine help and protection.
Jesus and John Piper: The Radicalization of a Research Assistant
For those of us who have never been on the blunt end of sexism (or racism, or ableism, etc.), things can look funny or tragic or intriguingly disgusting when they are actually evil.
My Top Ten Favorite Words
10. incendiary
You don’t often expect to find onomatopoeia in long, Latinate words.
John Donne on Donald Trump
I pray, I type, I read, I write more ands.
Wikipedia and the Wilderness
Using this definition, cities, industrial parks, and suburban developments are just as “wild” as Russian Arctic National Park.
The Star-Spangled Primary
It feels like the stars are marching on inevitably but purposelessly, favoring—as always—fear, anger, patriarchy, and established power.
Applying to Grad School: A Spiritual Practice in Seven Emails
Dear Supportive Friends, Middle School English Teachers, and Madcap Coffee:
Into the Next Octave
It’s like—gasp—a song can be both well thought out and an Oscar-baiting money-grab.
Why Sabbath Is Anti-Capitalist
On the seventh day, God rested. He’d had a big week—you know how it goes.
Nounless Poetry: An Experiment
Borges describes a fictional language that completely lacks nouns, and I tried to work out what this might mean in practice.
H is for Hoax
When scrawled or scratched on the skin of a beast
Or the earth’s frozen entrails, or the flesh
Of a leaf-maker, then I last longer.
A Report from Nerd Camp
This workshop is tuition-free, assignment-free, and pretty stress-free, but soon I’ll be back at my own school, and the cloud of duties will descend.
Music Before Bach: A Starter Kit
After all, what could sound older than a harpsichord?
You Ain’t Never Seen a Film Like Me: In Defense of Live-Action Adaptations
These live-action remakes might not always succeed in being great stand-alone movies, but maybe that’s not a fair standard to hold them to.
Twittering Better and Bettering Twitter
I was further convinced of the potential goodness of Twitter on Sunday, when my Twitter feed was filled to the brim with two conversations.
Naïve Observations and Questionable Qualifications
I can make completely brilliant points, crack absolutely hilarious jokes, and ask ridiculously insightful questions and get absolutely no response from my students. What’s up with that?
How to Still Enjoy Star Wars When You Have a Bad Feeling About This
And maybe that’s what Star Wars movies are now—a portal to a world we love.
By Love Alone?
Way to show those probably-reprobate, semi-Pelagian Catholics, Mel! Sola freaking fide.
Obi-Wan Reads Me Poetry
Guinness played Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars trilogy, and I stumbled giddily upon his recording of Eliot’s poems while studying them for a class at Calvin last year.
Sorry, Goodreads: Rethinking Reading Challenges
I’ve made a list of twenty authors—twelve who wrote after 1900 and eight from the centuries before—whose work I’m going to limit myself to.
A Pre– and Post–Election Day Prayer
Thank you that this country is a democracy and that the universe is not.
A Borrowed Credo
“I do not think that I will ever reach a stage when I will say, ’This is what I believe. Finished.’ What I believe is alive … and open to growth.” (Madeleine L’Engle)
Bird Listening
Rautavaara challenges the assumption that music belongs unequivocally to humanity by making birdsong a challenger and equal partner to “humansong.”
Harry Potter and the Humanist Podcast
If I really believe that the Bible was inspired by the creator of the universe, it should be much easier to find that trust than it is with a series of young adult fantasy novels finished a decade ago.
