Jonathan Ryan's Blog, page 31
October 24, 2017
Things Keeping the Undead Alive, October 2017
“Boys and girls of every age Wouldn’t you like to see something strange?” That question begins the song written by Danny Elfman for Tim Burton’s weird/creepy/endearing The Nightmare Before Christmas. I love that movie, not in spite of its oddness, but because of it. The same can be said of my feelings towards Halloween in general. […]
October 20, 2017
Approaching Mystery: Simeon Berry’s Backstory
My Cub Scout leader was built like a dump truck. He was squat and jowly, with a huge belly and a retreating wave of dark, curly hair. No one would share a tent with him due to his incessant farting, but he was kind and jolly, and made jokes around the campfire about whose […]
October 19, 2017
Spooky Pilgrimage: St. Kateri and the White Boy
“So, Mr. Weyer, why are you coming into Canada today, eh?” The border guard peered down at me and glanced into my car full of camping stuff. “Oh, um, well, I’m on a pilgrimage.” “Eh-huh. So, where you from then?” I smiled. “Indianapolis, Indiana.” “Whewwee, that’s a long way. You drove all this way for…what […]
Dark Devotional: Playing Both Sides
The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech. They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you […]
October 16, 2017
Spooky Pilgrimage: The Ghoulish Martyrs of North America
(Ed Note- Apologies for not writing this last week. Things got chaotic with the weird weather and a change of plans. Thus, I was on the road a lot with little access to WIFI.) As I sit in my tiny house named after St. Kateri, I’m sorting through what I experienced on my pilgrimage last […]
October 15, 2017
Dark Devotional: Being a Wave
“I have only one thing to do and that’s be the wave that I am and then sink back into the ocean.” –Fiona Apple This lyric comes from a song called “Container,” but I’ve always found that to be a bit of a misnomer. If I close my eyes and imagine life as a wave, […]
October 12, 2017
Approaching Mystery: Marie Kopp Travels Those Haunted Appalachian Roads
I grew up in the Appalachians of Western Pennsylvania, enfolded in these ancient, forested mountains. It’s a place of constant drenching rain and mystic fogs. Oaks and maples, emerald in the summer, blaze out come October frosts, before waning to spindly bare branches beneath the snow. The roads through my mountains turn and swerve every […]
October 9, 2017
Spooky Pilgrimage Day One: The Sacramental Ghosts of Cooperstown
I woke up at a New York state rest area with a crick in my neck and a mild sinus headache as the rain beat down on the roof of my car. The deluge spawned by the remnants of Hurricane Nate had floated my Honda Civic for the entire eight hour drive north. I arrived […]
The Bleeding Woman
When two friends told me that not only was the Bleeding Woman their favorite story in Grit and Grace, a book of “creatively re-imagined” Bible stories I wrote for tween-age girls, but that they cried while reading it, I chalked it up to their being women of a certain age and, well, perimenopausal. […]
October 6, 2017
Dark Devotional: In Praise of the Wild Grapes
It’s hard to write when you’re hugely distracted by really entertaining friends. The type of friends who have all the snark, and more wit than you can ever aspire to possessing. That’s what I realized when I sat down to write this, a week ago, attempting to submit something early for once. Look, roomie! […]
