Start by listening

You’ve got to know yourself so you can at last be yourself. – D. H. Lawrence « Nous naissons tous bisexués, du moins psychologiquement, » explains Marie Coupal in Le Guide du rêve et de ses symboles. In its mother’s womb, Coupal goes on to tell us, the fetus possesses for a certain time both the male … Read more

Consider yourself warned

Reflected peace is the proof that you are right with God because you are at liberty to turn your mind to him. – Oswald Chambers Oup là ! and Mélanie dans les airs were made on the same day, and both pieces feature a young girl with big hair engaged in recreational activity. The similarities, … Read more

The J in your face

Try something different – surrender. – Rumi Throw a dog a stick, the Buddhists say, and he will chase it. Over and over. Throw a lion a stick, and he will turn around to see who threw it. The lion faces the source of his thoughts and his problems; he seeks to understand them, to … Read more

Dear dad

Quelquefois je m’avoue que ce qui me plait le plus dans cette idée d’éternité, c’est la chance accordée, en retrouvant les âmes chères, de s’expliquer à fond avec elles, et que cesse enfin le long malentendu de la vie. – Gabrielle Roy 1 Samuel of my father’s old Bible is riddled with little marks of … Read more

God speed

Christ wants a child’s heart, but a grown-up’s head. – C.S. Lewis In Le Vent dans le dos,a long sleek horse carries on her back a woman and a fox. The woman sits tall, her hand resting lightly on the horse’s neck, her blond hair flowing forward in the wind as one with the horse’s … Read more

Here and now

Be still, and know that I am God. – Psalm 46:10 During times of fear and anxiety, people have often turned to Psalm 46 for comfort. In his meditation on this psalm, Timothy Keller explains why. The psalmist, he tells us, is contrasting earthly cities to the heavenly city, the city of God; while the … Read more

Consider the owl

You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger. – Buddha Sadness and anger are quite unpleasant as far as emotions go, and yet they are a normal part of the human experience. Essential, even. Take Riley, the protagonist in Pixar’s 2015 animated movie Inside Out, for example. In … Read more

With love, from Toothpick

A grownup is a child with layers on. – Woody Harrelson The moment captured in Au pays des cheveux gris is peaceful and quiet and soft, like the dawn. The five figures waking to this dawn are both sagacious and childlike: on their heads are piles of gray hair; on their skinny, imperfectly shaped bodies, … Read more

Work to do

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. – Harriet Beecher-Stowe On one side of Nous en prendrons bien soin, people of this world. Opposite them, people from another. In the woman’s long legs and the shape of her hair is something of the four-legged being. She comes … Read more

A time for everything

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God. – Karl Barth The inspiration for Sœur Odélie-Ursule-Ida-Émonde de l’Incarnation (1919 – 2020) is neither a splatter nor a stain offered up from a sidewalk, but a formation resulting from improperly sanded wood that has been painted over multiple times. This sister goose appeared to … Read more