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What I Hear When I Go Birding by Ear
In this issue: Maybe the past isn’t as lost to us as we think · The World Needs More Hypocrites (Starting with You) · Killing the Monster · The Bizarre Concrete Vision of Fred Smith

Looking for Mariwood
In this issue: Maybe the past isn’t as lost to us as we think · The World Needs More Hypocrites (Starting with You) · Killing the Monster · The Bizarre Concrete Vision of Fred Smith

Is There a Job Title for What I Do?
In this issue: Is There a Job Title for What I Do? · The Blackfoot Confederacy and Me · Because the World Needs a Poem about Shoveling · 1980s Nuclear Apocalypse Movies Should Finally Spur Us to Ban Nuclear Weapons

Maybe Washing Dishes Was the Most Important Work We Did
In this issue: Maybe Washing Dishes Was the Most Important Work We Did · The Liturgists Put a New Spin on Ecclesiastes · What I’m Working On · A Meditation on Standing Still

A Resurrection Worth Singing About, Even in the Storm
In the face of war, abuse, and sad throwing-up children, I believe in its happy ending Happy Easter, a few days late—or Merry Christmas might be more appropriate, given the wintery weather we’ve had here in the Upper Midwest the past few weeks. This newsletter is supposed to go out every Sunday, and I had…

So, Christ Was Murdered in Ukraine. And What Am I Supposed to Do with That?
In this issue: Christ Was Murdered in Ukraine · The Taming of the Mississippi · Micarah Tewers Makes a Dress from a Couch · Putting Down the Dog & Soaking Seeds · Benjamin Franklin’s Phonetic Alphabet

Why I Whistle
In This Issue Notes: Why I Whistle · New Words: I Once Walked Around My House Upside-Down · In Other Words: Mary Oliver and the Opportunity Cost of Writing Poetry · News: Potting Up the Basil and Tomatoes · Postscript: Ditching School to Whistle Get “Notes in Glass Bottles” in your inbox every Sunday. NOTE Why I Whistle Maybe it’s an act of defiance, or maybe it’s just…

The Virtues of Remote Desert Islands in the Age of Noise
In this issue
The Virtues of Remote Desert Islands in the Age of Noise + Into the Desert Once Again + The best Christian prayer books (for beginners) + Krista Tippett interviews Kate DiCamillo + Live with OSV: Imaginative Prayer + New Resources for Imaginative Prayer + The Real Notes in Glass Bottles

Unmasked
This week, I walked into our local Kwik Trip convenience store without slipping on a mask for the first time in more than a year. It was a little anticlimactic, given how long we’ve waited for this day to come—everyone else in the store, similarly unmasked, went around buying bananas and milk and eggs and…