literary living
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Seeking Sobriety: Prayer and Practice in the Election Season
I have been contemplating a phrase from the Book of Common Prayer. Even as I read it silently, I hear this particular prayer sung in the consistent, comforting monotone of an evensong cantor: “O GOD, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed: Give unto thy servants that peace… Continue reading
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Worth Writing About
In No Time to Spare, Le Guin seems to challenge Franklin’s pervasive, pernicious quote that we must “write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.” What is worth reading and writing about? Galaxies, journeys, and revolutions, certainly, but also cats, trees, and eggs. What is worth doing? Imagining different worlds, exploring important questions,… Continue reading
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On Four Letter Words
Badly pronounced words do not trouble me, for it indicates that the speaker is more used to reading and writing than talking. Badly used words, however, trouble me immensely. Continue reading
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On the Journaling Life: 10 Years and Counting
I have been journaling for over ten years now. My first entry from 2010 begins with the ever-eloquent “Arghhhh!” of a furious thirteen-year-old. I was apparently enraged by my seventh-grade math teacher, though I’m laughing now at the incident. It is hilarious that such a minor grievance propelled me into one of the greatest blessings… Continue reading
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Loving By Not Loving: On Intentional interest
The other day, I asked my dad to print my dissertation at his office. That evening, I found it neatly stacked on the counter and took it upstairs to edit without giving it a second thought. “I started reading your dissertation but you must have moved it,” my dad later told me. “It was really… Continue reading
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Not Far From the Tree: A Secular Icon
Stickers cover the back of my laptop, forming a small collage of my personality and of the various influences in my life. In the centre glows an apple with a single missing bite. The choice of the Apple logo seems straightforward; it’s simple, appealing (pun intended), and recognisable. Further, apples represent enlightenment and erudition—consider, for… Continue reading
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To the Friends Who Tell Me “No”
I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately. Even (and perhaps especially) in the midst of completely altered social norms, my friendships seem to be growing stronger. Despite distance, change, and time, my closest friends and I are continuing to care for one another. As I finished catching up with a dear friend last night,… Continue reading
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The Usual, Please
I do not feel at home until I can walk into a coffee shop and order simply “the usual.” There is something to being known by both name and coffee order that just makes me feel as though I am living in a storied universe such as Stars Hollow of Gilmore Girls. The hum of… Continue reading
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Summer Reading: July 2020
Does anyone else miss summer reading programs? Although I continue to read more during the summer than any other time of year, there was a great satisfaction to completing reading challenges and earning prizes which adult life sadly lacks. Still, I thought I would share what I’ve been reading lately—that is, when I am not… Continue reading
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Dear Mr. Potter: An Open Letter on Cancel Culture
Mr. H. PotterThe Cupboard under the Stairs4 Privet Drive Little WhingingSurrey Dear Mr. Potter, We at the Ministry of Magic are writing to inform you of a significant occurrence of which it is imperative that you be informed. To put it bluntly, you are now thrice-orphaned. The passing of your heroic father and mother, Lily… Continue reading
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Befriending Dante: A Reflection on Readership
Although I have always been bookish in about every sense of the word, I went through a “rebellious” phase in high school when my AP Literature class was required to read Dante’s Inferno. I was adamantly against it and now, as I reread it for the fourth or fifth time, I can explain away this opposition as… Continue reading
AP Lit, AP Literature, bookish, books, characters, Christian literature, cultural literacy, dante, divine comedy, Fiction, history, inferno, inspiration, literacy, literary, literary friends, literature, narrative, paradise, purgatory, reader, readership, Reading, relationships, theology, theology and the arts -
Whatever is Lovely
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” – Philippians 4:8 . I prefer to live my life in double-speed. My long legs are well-suited to covering… Continue reading
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Ryanne Molinari 