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The Nightstand

More Articles in The Nightstand

Paterson and Poetic Fidelity

Creative fidelity is attuned to, and draws out, the richness in people and things. It calls for awareness and attentive seeing. In the end, Paterson is a film about such creative fidelity…
December 2, 2022

The Joyful Christian Nationalist: How Stephen Leacock Loved His Home by Resisting the World

Undergirding Leacock's work was not a desire to restore a previous version of Canada, but to preserve the gifts God had given: the best traditions of the past, the communities in which…

Stories of Healing and Wholeness: An Appreciative Engagement with Wendell Berry’s The Need to be Whole

Brecon, Wales. Stories are a necessary part of healing and wholeness. I don’t just mean a story we may like or we tell ourselves (though they include that), nor do I mean…

An American Augustine

The various parts—historical and autobiographical, theological and literary—all contribute to the central thread: that we seek wholeness, and that wholeness depends on better understanding ourselves and our damaged, but not lost, chances…

More of the Familiar in Wendell Berry’s How It Went

He has never chased the new or tried to be avant-garde. Even in the physical act of writing, he has famously resisted the “advantages” of a personal computer and has opted instead…
November 8, 2022

Remembering Revisited

That integration, that coherence of self in two souls resurrected in each other’s presence, is what keeps my place in my community. It’s what makes a home for my grievances, present and…

The Leavening Effect of Seeking the Truth: A Review of Untrustworthy

In Untrustworthy, Kristian sets an objective for Christians to be faithful, factual, and fair. In some cases, this must be practiced in a somewhat extreme environment. What do we do when we…
October 19, 2022

Stumbling toward Vulnerable Interdependence: A Review of The Ink Black Heart

Not only is this a literary accomplishment, it’s an example that both Rowling and her critics – and, by extension, all of us who wish to live in compassionate community with one…

Along the Garden Path of my Fathers

They know their neighbors; they know their village; they know their land. They have their own vernacular that everyone who lives there understands because their father and mother taught them, just like…
October 12, 2022

A Pathway to Peace: Hope in The Need to Be Whole

Berry, with an insistence that defies despair, is still carrying out his calling. He notes the discouraging odds his kind has faced not just now but in the past. Imperial presence in…
October 7, 2022

Identity and Integration: A Whole Lot of Wendell Berry

Berry connects these major themes from The Hidden Wound to other themes from his many works—work, agrarianism, industrialization, citizenship, affection, and place. In so doing, he offers his readers a fuller-orbed view…

Seeking Clarity: Wendell Berry’s New Book on Race

These are not compassionate times—not in the public square, and not in all too much of our increasingly chaotic private life, though I think many people are trying. Mr. Berry knows this…
October 5, 2022
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