Jonathan Ryan's Blog, page 26
March 11, 2018
Introducing Robert Saler – On Being Protestant and a Sick Pilgrim
Why would a Protestant want to be part of Sick Pilgrim? There are basically two ways of thinking about what it means to be a Protestant Christian. One road is that of ascetic severity: if it’s not in the Bible or a given book of confessions, then it has to be thrown out. Calvinist strands […]
March 8, 2018
Dark Devotional: How can I call myself a Christian?
Art by the crimson and reflective Brian Jocks. My sophomore year at Taylor University, a small Christian college in Indiana, I sat between two friends on a couch, watching a movie in our dorm. I was eating a snack-size package of bland vanilla cookies — the only sweet thing they’d had for sale at the […]
March 7, 2018
What does the moon sound like?
Several years ago, I happened upon naturalist Sallie Wolf’s website detailing her “moon project.” For 20 years, Wolf has observed the moon, desiring as she put it, to live like a preliterate person, without access to books or the internet, learning only through the power of her own observation. She developed a visual tool for charting the […]
March 3, 2018
Dark Devotional: Their Fathers’ Wickedness
In those days, God delivered all these commandments: “I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth […]
March 1, 2018
Rare Disease Day: A Sick Pilgrim Lobbies on Capitol Hill
The sun was setting, and this Cajun was still not freezing. In the distant north of Washington, D.C., at the unforgiving time of the ending of February, I expected frigid misery, but I’d eagerly accepted the invitation to lobby on behalf of the 1 in 10 Americans affected by a rare disease or disorder. After […]
February 26, 2018
Things Keeping Us Alive, February 2018
I’m ready for spring. Some people live for colder weather– the days when the air is chilly enough to wear more layers of clothes makes them giddy and eager to wear several accessories, making sure that everything matches or meshes together to look fashionable. I hate everything about that sentence. I blame my Cajun blood. […]
February 22, 2018
The Harder They Come: Lenten Dark Devotional
Art by the brilliant and transfigurative Brian Jocks. I do not like Lent. There I said it. I don’t like the fasting. I don’t like the somber masses without the hallelujahs. I don’t like preparing for Jesus’ death. Yes, yes, I know that we are preparing for the glorious moment when he raises up […]
February 21, 2018
Approaching Mystery: Who’s That Girl by Jessica Mesman Griffith
My trauma therapist warns me that my worst memories might surface later, outside of his office, that sometimes a session shakes one loose, like some kind of burrowing insect or a parasite. It happens while I’m doing the grocery shopping, and a Eurythmics song comes on the PA. I stop in the pasta aisle and […]
February 16, 2018
Dark Devotional: Happily Stuck in the Desert
Art by the brooding, contemplative Brian Jocks. 12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. 14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news […]
February 9, 2018
Dark Devotional: Go and Claim Your Healing
A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.” The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. Then, warning him sternly, […]
