September 2017
September 2017
Last month, in a section titled “One Nation, Indivisible,” we devoted more than half our pages to excerpts from The Sun’s archives. Our goal was to address the current political moment by giving readers perspective on the past and courage to face the present. Because the problems in our nation seem unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, we are making this an ongoing part of the magazine.
One Of Us
Once upon a time there was an abbot of a monastery who was very good friends with the rabbi of a local synagogue. It was Europe, and times were hard. . . .
Sunbeams
It’s not enough to be gentle with those who are like us if we can’t find it in ourselves to be kind with those who are less fortunate than we are. The true test of our compassion lies in our ability to have concern for those least like ourselves.
Love Thy Neighbor
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove On Race, Faith, And Resistance
Most black evangelicals didn’t vote for him. Most Latino evangelicals didn’t vote for him. But 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump.
The Salt Seas Of The Heart
A Tribute To Brian Doyle
You believed that everything is a form of prayer, including laughter, including tears. Yes, you were a reverential man, but you weren’t stiff or boring or preachy or dour. Your essays were both concise — often just a page in length — and lush, your sentences as intricate and twisty as plants in a terrarium. You combined prose and poem (and prayer, you said) to bear witness to the miracles around us.
Inventory
On Reading The Papers Of Richard M. Stites, Esq., At The Georgia Historical Society In Savannah
I spread out your charts, your ledgers, your bug-eaten accounts, the ones cataloged and filed in acid-free folders. The room where I sit, Mr. Stites, is not far from the room where you yourself must have sat, sweat-stained, surrounded by your law books, sleeves rolled up, face sopping wet, bent over your volumes. Adding, subtracting, calculating, measuring, devising. Not far from where your slaves stood in pens waiting to be sold.
Catching The Westbound
When my father died, he left two letters in separate envelopes, both marked “To be opened at my death.” One is addressed to my brother and me. The other is to his wife.
Stop Hitting Yourself
I was twenty-six, working full time at the Bagelry in suburban Chicago, avoiding the future. The future did not seem like anything you could count on. Even in suburban Chicago, where Public Works employees smiled while scraping up roadkill, people were unhappy, desperate to convince themselves of something good. Desperate.
