Articles 355

My father cried the day his stroke began, as he lay in the emergency ward, watching himself lose his speech and his strength. He cried the day after the stroke…

McCarraher argues that capitalism works very much like a religion in the contemporary world.

The locust tree is a rare symbol of Christmas and Easter as one.

Thompson illustrates how rural people’s hopes do not align with the interests of those who wield power, be that power political, social, or economic. He teaches us that truth, fact,…

The day after Thanksgiving yields a joy of three parts. The first joy is that of an introvert newly restored to peace and quiet after the raucous hubbub of last…

This year an unexpected autumn snow blanketed our farm.  In the days that followed, single-digit temperatures secured its place in the landscape, and another, lighter snowfall would later strengthen winter’s…

The Prior of the Upstate New York Abbey where I work often describes his cloistered life by using the phrase “living within a sonnet.” A poet himself, he’s naturally attuned…

I’m not asking what candidate you support. What I am asking you to consider is what does your vote constitute? This question was spurred by Jeff Bilbro’s thought-provoking essay here…

I recently visited a barber in my Virginian hometown whom I had not patronized in more than a year (I’d taken to getting my haircuts during lunch breaks at my…

I have no doubt this collection would delight Bailey, dandelions and all. Selecting and anthologizing the work of a writer-scholar as prolific as this is a labor of love as…

The 2020 presidential election cycle has been in full swing for months now, and we are still almost a year away from casting our actual ballots. We justify this colossal…

The presence of a mature orchard is a sign of the longevity of the farm and the temperance and patience of its farmers.

". . . among the keenest minds in contemporary American letters." ---Allan Carlson

Something about Taleb’s emphasis on practical wisdom unleashes in his readers a sense of humility, a renewed trust in reason, and a spiritual hunger courageous enough to move beyond the…

A church that prides itself on its universality—its catholicity—has served as a seedbed for hundreds of parishes divided along ethnic lines.

In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr lays bare the consequences of the American empire and how this history has been ignored by citizens of the United States. It’s…

In the discussion of minimalism, I want to suggest it’s less about what’s in your home than what your home is used for. It’s not what you don’t have in…

Wendell Berry’s new story is actually about two great interruptions: the first forms the occasion for Billy’s tale, and the second is how, as the title has it, the tale…

What I’m writing is not an exposé of the Christian college, nor a bitter and defiant account of my triumph over an evil system, but a confession of my own…

If we learn about ourselves and our homes through travel, we don’t just become better “citizens of the world”—we can become more conscious and thoughtful citizens of our own places.

Using money to measure a person’s worth is a product of an early version of the digital mindset that attempts to quantify all aspects of life.

"I dipped the now limp turkey into a cauldron of boiling water, plucked its feathers and gutted it. On a chilly afternoon, it felt perfectly natural and pleasurable to warm…

All in all, mark The Vermont Papers down as a brave if idealistic attempt to chart the beginning of a campaign to preserve and refresh liberty, community and democracy in…

Little do I know that in a few days I will have died properly: by explosion.