Dori Moody: “The Worm Charmers” by Michael Adno, Oxford American, June 4, 2024
Nightcrawler hunting with a flashlight holds nothing to worm grunting. “The Worm Charmers” unearthed a new underworld and vocabulary for me. I found myself rooting for the workers who grunt worms, in hope that this tradition never dies.

Sam Hine: “Against Killing Children” by Wendell Berry, Christian Century, October 3, 2024
I was happy to see that at ninety, Wendell Berry hasn’t lost his edge, and still steps up when it’s time to say something obvious that no one wants to say, in this case connecting the dots between school safety and Gaza and nuclear arsenals.

Jake Meador: “I Bought Everything Advertised in National Review and All I Got Was This Bleak Odyssey into the Rotten Heart of American Conservatism, America, and Also Myself” by Sam Kriss, Compact, February 14, 2024
Sometimes the best way to learn about a movement or community is to look at their material existence – how do they support their living? Why do they do it that way? How does that shape them? These are instructive questions we can ask of any political or ecclesial movement, I think. This piece by the British writer Sam Kriss is a rather devastating (and hilarious) case study of the material drivers of one version of the political right in contemporary America.

Leah Sargeant: “The Parish at the Top of the World” by Edgar Beltrán, The Pillar, February 7, 2024
The Pillar goes to the peripheries in this reported piece about one of the northernmost Catholic parishes in the world. The community in Finland is served by an Italian seminarian and a priest raised in India. The edge of the world and the rest of the world kiss.

Shana Goodwin: “Preserving the Wilderness Idea” by Brian Treanor, Hedgehog Review, Spring 2024
I appreciate Brian Treanor’s careful defense of the concept of wilderness as the natural world “insofar as it has not been bent to human ends,” and find it a helpful companion to themes in our Spring 2024 issue, The Riddle of Nature.

Joe Hine: “Who Wants to Believe in UFOs” by Clare Coffey, The New Atlantis, Summer 2024
Are UFOs technically advanced visitors from the far corners of the universe or locally based spiritual beings? Clare Coffey covers this intriguing debate in depth.

Coretta Thomson: “The Dead End of Political Misogyny” by Erika Bachiochi, Compact, October 24, 2024
In this concise, forthright piece, Erika Bachiochi cuts through culture-war rhetoric to suggest a better path to healing our divides. Although a few projected voter statistics played out differently in the US election, her underlying points are well worth the read.

Maureen Swinger: “The Age of Abandonment” by Freya India, Girls (Substack), October 8, 2024
Gen Z has landed in a land of distance, distrust, and fear. Young women, especially, have been thrown into a pit, the escape route a ladder with no rungs. “We haven’t lost sight of what’s important, we were never shown what was important.” Few have described this lostness as clearly as Freya India; or talked so forthrightly about how it might be changed.

Alan Koppschall: “Against Christian Civilization” by Paul Kingsnorth, First Things, October 2024
Paul Kingsnorth reminds us that Christianity is not about fighting for the West or defending the nation state, but about repentance. Christ’s call to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, care for the sick, visit those in prison, and love our enemies, our neighbors, and God are as radically important as ever.

Caitrin Keiper: “Of Dragons and Other Creatures” by Sr. Carino Hodder, Comment, December 5, 2024
When Sister Carino was first reading Kristin Lavransdatter, she would traipse around the house muttering in exasperation about the bad choices the protagonist was making. Then she had a realization that not only threw the whole story into a new light, but pointed the way toward healing for herself and others.

Maria Hine: “Hunting Silence” by Ben Woollard, Front Porch Republic, September 26, 2024
Muscling through excruciating boredom, Ben Woollard once spent the morning in a hunting blind watching cows stand around a pond. Yet in the woods, he says, intense inner peace is the reward of hours spent in silent attention. While I never plan to hunt, I love the outdoors and greatly enjoyed reading this piece.

Susannah Black Roberts: “The Right without Wrong” by Dustin Guastella, Jacobin, October 1, 2024
Dustin Guastella breaks down the post-religious right for his – mostly secular, virtually all far left – readers. I’m not the audience for this piece, but I appreciate his fair mindedness and his recognition that however one might disagree with Christianity, it has been a force for social solidarity and a bulwark against technological or philosophical dehumanization.

Santiago Ramos: “Lockdown Nostalgia” by Tara Isabella Burton, Wisdom of Crowds (Substack), July 27, 2024
Tara Isabella Burton feels a strange nostalgia for the early parts of the lockdown. Life was simpler. It was easier to recognize our mutual dependence. A strange and original piece.

Clare Stober: “What's Behind America's Loneliness Crisis” by Ian Marcus Corbin, Commonweal, July 24, 2024
Corbin’s essay points to disturbing potential outcomes of the loneliness epidemic raging in the United States. Yet he suggests the solution should be working together on tasks that advance a deep and shared purpose. Our survival, he says, depends on making radical changes in what we see as the purpose of others’ lives and of our own.