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Welcome to Arras Theme!
Arras Theme is a WordPress theme designed for news or review sites with lots of customisable features.
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Recent Posts
- Psaltery & Lyre’s New Site
- 123 Psaltery & Lyre: “Agricola Dreams of Flying” by J. Rose Lara
- 122 Psaltery & Lyre: “Communion: a love poem (a villanelle)” by Rachel Bollinger
- Book Review: Philip Metres’s Sand Opera
- 121 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Horsehead Nebula”
- Book Review: Monica Ong’s Silent Anatomies
- 120 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Return, pt. III” and “Gaia”
- Book Review: Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
- Book Review: Matthea Harvey, If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?
- Book Review: LoterÃa Cards and Fortune Poems: A Book of Lives
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Tag Cloud
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love Archive
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Pantsgate 2012: There Is Room Enough for All of Us
Posted on December 14, 2012 | 6 CommentsThere is room enough in Christ for all of us. -
32 Psaltery & Lyre: Dayna Patterson, “Soft”
Posted on December 13, 2012 | 5 Comments"The doctrine is an egg / in its shell / I can't swallow / God . . . " -
29 Psaltery & Lyre: Alex Wiggins, “Cleaning our keyboard”
Posted on November 22, 2012 | No Comments"It's weird how we erode. / In the valleys, shed pieces of me / fell from busy fingertips and mingled / with cracker crumbs, bacon bits, / stranded grains of rice . . . " -
Choosing Faith in the Face of Doubt
Posted on September 17, 2012 | 10 CommentsThe truth is that some things will hurt and be difficult. The truth is that some questions will never be fully resolved. Part of a mature faith is accepting the inherent ambiguity of life and acting in accordance with our deepest hopes anyway. -
Unyielding: It’s How We Operate
Posted on September 13, 2012 | 22 CommentsDuring my ex-boyfriend’s honeymoon, I sent him a dozen red roses, along with three singing telegrams, which I had delivered three days in a row. The girl paid to sing to my ex was yelled at by his new wife, who was angry at the […] -
The Pillars of Love, Part 1: Authenticity
Posted on September 7, 2012 | 1 CommentTo be pure, love must be authentic. This is much more than saying that love must be authentically felt. What I mean is that pure love must come from a heart that is stripped of deceit, for love cannot survive otherwise. -
39 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Please Don’t Tell Me I Don’t Understand the Gospel
Posted on August 28, 2012 | 11 CommentsHad I simply refused to see it? Turned a blind eye out of conformity? Why, after decades in the church, did these things suddenly bother me? -
The Hallelujah Chorus
Posted on March 15, 2012 | 11 CommentsLet’s just get the Shrek connection out of the way. The strange inclusion of the song “Hallelujah” in the enormously successful 2001 animated film (that launched a million sequels) helped put Leonard Cohen’s enormously influential but not yet incredibly well known composition on the popular […] -
Dog Heaven
Posted on January 26, 2012 | 8 Comments. You know how we all imagine that 'dog heaven' will be a place where dogs get to do what dogs like, like ride in cars with their heads hanging out the window or run through meadows chasing balls and sticks? Somehow, 'Mormon heaven' has never sounded like 'Claire heaven' to me. -
Santa and I
Posted on December 22, 2011 | 7 CommentsThe year I turned four or five, we drove to my grandparents in central Wisconsin for Christmas. Actually, we did this for most years of my early childhood- until I was 8 or so and we moved to Florida. Making the 1100 mile […] -
08 Dear Jack: Nourishing the Delusion
Posted on December 9, 2011 | 3 CommentsDear Jack, I believe that one of the greatest gifts God has given us is our capacity to think for ourselves. If I do my best to understand a particular issue, and then honestly and openly seek His inspiration, and I reach a conclusion that […] -
My Own Personal Canon: Southern-fried Love
Posted on November 20, 2011 | 9 CommentsIn Paul’s 2nd epistle to Timothy, chapter 3, verses 14-17, we read this ringing endorsement of inspired writings: But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child […] -
Going to the Dogs
Posted on November 5, 2011 | 8 CommentsThe following piece is a guest submission by Claudia Ruptier ; Ron liked dogs. He just didn’t want one-even after he’d been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment with likely progression to dementia. I was thinking of a service dog to help care for my […] -
Favorites: Business Lunch
Posted on October 6, 2011 | No CommentsI asked a group with an empty chair if I could sit with them. A young man's smile put me at ease and I settled in for lunch. I wasn't sure what to say, but I needn't have worried. -
Finding Peace
Posted on September 22, 2011 | 4 CommentsForgiveness. As babies and young children, we can’t help but forgive those that wrong us. We have no choice…. we are too dependent. But somehow along the path to adulthood (and independence) we lose that. Maybe rightly so- I think there […] -
The Wish Tree
Posted on September 15, 2011 | 1 CommentI had my five year old daughter with me and I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't get her very interested in the bronzes. Then we turned the corner and beheld the Wish Tree. -
Book Lover
Posted on September 6, 2011 | 7 CommentsI’m not afraid to admit it. I have a problem. I’m addicted to books. I thought I had kept it hidden for many years, but when my wife finally catches me looking at the most recent Library of America catalogue with lust in my eyes, […] -
Window to Utopia
Posted on August 11, 2011 | 6 CommentsWhat would heaven be like, for a teenager? -
Husband and Wife Book Club: The Road
Posted on August 9, 2011 | 10 CommentsRead The Road only if you can handle the bittersweetness of life. Read The Road only if you can bear to carry the torch. -
We Are Pioneers
Posted on July 28, 2011 | 4 CommentsAs I was telling my Kindergartner earlier this month that we're all pioneers in some way. Whenever we stand up for what we believe in or do something because we know inside it's a good thing to do, we are pioneers. -
I Love the Smell of K-Y Warming Jelly ® in the Morning, or, Marital Apocalypse Delayed
Posted on June 10, 2011 | 8 CommentsAlthough best known for “The Seventh Seal” and other serious “art house” films, I suggest Ingmar Bergman’s best work is his delightful “Smiles of a Summer Night.” Whether you watch it as a momentary diversion from a sweltering evening this summer or view it as […] -
Angels with Power Tools
Posted on May 12, 2011 | 9 CommentsWhen you hear the words “Compassionate Service” what comes to mind? This is like one of those word association games- just go with your gut feeling. Macaroni and cheese? Sign up sheets? Relief Society Board Meeting? A calling you hated (or […] -
“Come to Zion”
Posted on April 16, 2011 | 10 Comments‘Zion’ has become a dirty word in our world: now it is shorthand for the displacement of native peoples from their homelands, and a justification for the flexing of military power for scriptural causes. I’m not sure that when my people sing songs about ‘Zion’ […] -
Before Sunset
Posted on April 15, 2011 | 9 CommentsFor Jesse and Céline these questions are embodied in a single night and in each other. But the question of how we balance our passion, our need to continue living fully with the realities of daily living can come to us in many guises. -
Before Sunrise
Posted on April 8, 2011 | 24 CommentsAn American man meets a French woman on a train in Europe. They connect and get off together in Vienna where they spend the night walking around the city and talking, making love hours before each is scheduled to depart for home. With that framework, […] -
Parallel Journeys
Posted on March 24, 2011 | 20 CommentsBy Claudia On my personal blog, I am known as “The Faithful Dissident.” For the past three years, I’ve been hiding behind that alias. Afraid of what, I’m not exactly sure, but some of my experiences during the past yearhave made me realize that I’m […] -
Magnolia
Posted on March 22, 2011 | 2 CommentsPaul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) shows us (to use David Lynch’s words:) people ‘in trouble’. Like Altman’s Short Cuts, the film revolves around the strangely interconnected lives of a number of families in the city, each trying to navigate crises that seem to be veering […] -
Talents: Addition and Multiplication
Posted on March 10, 2011 | 9 CommentsThis is a guest post from a favorite reader and commenter, Corktree. It may sound simplistic (or just serving of my purpose), but I’ve always read the parable of the talents to mean actual talents. It’s just easy to see how one might be […] -
The Fountain
Posted on March 4, 2011 | 15 CommentsHow much recompense can mythology -- or even the scientific comforts of persistence of the body -- provide in the face of human yearning? -
Celebrating the Man As Well As His Cause
Posted on March 3, 2011 | 13 CommentsA guest post from a reader, Debra. Names matter. They do. My life experience has taught me this. Names are important as they are references — signs – that direct us to meaning, and often to a particular point in time – in history. In […] -
Valentine Crush
Posted on February 14, 2011 | 1 CommentValentine’s Day is for amore and what more perfectly embodies amore than a crush? Our friend Course Correction channels the sweet innocence and lasting, life-altering experience of that crushing moment. Happy Valentine’s Day to you too, CC. [Image credit: Antonio Canova – Amore e Psiche. […] -
Playing Valentine
Posted on February 14, 2011 | 213 CommentsLegend has it that one of the roots of Valentine’s Day stem from a third century ban on marriage passed by Roman emperor Claudius II who thought married men made poor soldiers. A priest named Valentine continued the marriage tradition by marrying couples in secret, […] -
Bearing a Burden
Posted on February 10, 2011 | 6 CommentsIt sounds corny, but by carrying around her belongings (two pairs of sturdy shoes, a box of office supplies, a blanket, and a black garbage bag full of what I assume was clothing) I felt like I was literally bearing her burden, whoever she was. -
The Golden Rule
Posted on February 1, 2011 | 5 Comments[UPDATED] I am bound and cannot escape. I live in shadows and mists along the edges of that magical world of my childhood; a realm where all of humanity is enslaved by unhappiness and fear of certain destruction ... unless ... -
Scapegoats
Posted on January 29, 2011 | 15 Comments"Don't blame it all on the devil" seems a reasonable enough point for mature minds. Maybe too obvious a point? It's tempting to take all of this at face value and assume that Defoe's meaning is simple, but I'd like to suggest something further ... -
Enough is enough
Posted on November 8, 2010 | 6 CommentsWherefore do ye spend money for [that which is] not bread? and your labour for [that which] satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye [that which is] good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. -
15 Favorite …
Posted on November 2, 2010 | 15 CommentsPersonally, I'm a sucker for these lists. I seem to be constitutionally incapable of resisting them, even though they're hardly ever revelatory. -
Forgotten
Posted on October 9, 2010 | 34 CommentsLight of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul laments Humbert Humbert. The recollection of Lolita draws Nabokov’s unreliable narrator far back in time as the middle-aged man, now grown old with memories, paints a portrait that pleads for pity and argues […]