The Conditions of Will

by Jessa Hastings

losses sneak up on you no matter how many blankets and smiles you throw over them.

I purse my lips in contempt. Think about how being a “Christian” has so little to do with acting Christ-like now, especially these days, and especially in America.

“That God that my mom thinks she serves—he’s so much smaller than who I think the real one is. The real one—to me, he’s everywhere, in everything. And sure, maybe he speaks through the Bible. But also maybe he speaks through Narnia, and Harry Potter despite J. K. Rowling lately, and the trees, and science, and the stars, and black holes and the ocean and the way the sky looks sometimes, and you can feel it in your chest.”