Author Archives: Rick Wilcox

Maps by Holly Ordway

· by | in Holly Ordway, Malcolm Guite | tagged

Holly Ordway is Professor of English and faculty in the M.A. in Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.  She teachs in the Online MAA program and specialize in cultural and imaginative literary apologetics.

Her forthcoming new book is Imaginative Apologetics, due out in Spring 2017 from Emmaus Road Publishing.

Holly’s academic work focuses on J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams; she is the Charles Williams Subject Editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies. More details on her academic writings can be found on her “Writing” page.

Holly’s current project is a literary-critical study, Tolkien’s Modern Sources: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages, to be published by Kent State University Press. You can get a glimpse of some of her findings (an intriguing connection between Tolkien and William Morris) here.

She is also the author of a memoir,  Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms.

If you’re interested in having Holly give a talk to your organization, take a look at her speaking schedule and she will be in touch!

Slow Me Down by Kelly Belmonte

· by | in Kelly Belmonte, Madeleine L'Engle | tagged

Kelly Belmonte has been writing poetry for over 30 years and blogging for ten (mostly at allninemuses.wordpress.com). Important poetic influences have included Kobayashi Issa, R.M. Rilke, Marge Piercy, Malcolm Guite, Frank Gaspar, and many other fine poets. Her work has been published in Atlas Poetica, Relief Journal, The Literary Nest, Open: Journal of Arts & Literature, and Ruminate, and included in The Word in the Wilderness (Canterbury Press, 2014) and Love, Remember (Canterbury Press, 2017). She also contributed a chapter on the poetry of C.S. Lewis to Women and C.S. Lewis (2015), a collection of interviews and essays on the theme of Lewis and women in his life and writings. Kelly’s two poetry chapbooks, Three Ways of Searching (2013) and Spare Buttons (2014), are published by Finishing Line Press.

A Very Indocile Equestrian

· by | in Malcolm Guite, Samuel Taylor Coleridge | tagged ,

LETTER TO GEORGE COLERIDGE Samuel Taylor Coleridge 23 February 1794 Sweet in the sight of God and celestial Spirits are the tears of Penitence—the pearls of heaven—the Wine of Angels! Such has been the language of Divines— but Divines have exaggerated.—Repentance may bestow that tranquillity, which will enable man to pursue a course of undeviating […]

The Ode on the Slave Trade

· by | in Malcolm Guite, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sappho, William Wilberforce | tagged ,

THE ODE Samuel Taylor Coleridge From the translation by J.C.C. May in Poetical Works O ye who revel in the ills of Slavery, O feeders on the groans of the wretched, insolent sons of Excess, shedders of own brothers’ blood, does not the inescapable Eye see these things? Does not Nemesis threaten fire-breathing reprisal? Do […]

Jesus and the Dragoons

· by | in Charles Valentine Le Grice, Malcolm Guite, Samuel Taylor Coleridge | tagged ,

THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE, DECEMBER 1834 Charles Valentine Le Grice Of Christ’s Hospital and Trinity College, Cambridge What evenings I have spent in those rooms! . . . when Aeschylus, and Plato, and Thucydides were pushed aside, with a pile of lexicons etc, to discuss the pamphlets of the day. Ever and anon, a pamphlet issued […]

Cheshire Cats and the Holy Spirit by Donna Fowler

· by | in Donna Fowler, Lewis Carroll | tagged

Donna L. Fowler (Fowler-Marchant) is an elder in the NC Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church currently serving as Minister of Pastoral Care at First Presbyterian Church, Fayetteville, NC. She is writing a book about John Wesley as a spiritual director, especially through his letters to women, and her thoughts about God, life, and the Wesleys can be found at travelswithwesley.blogspot.com.

Crying For Barabbas

· by | in George Orwell | tagged

1984 George Orwell “Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the […]

The Lighthouse Top

· by | in Charles Lamb, Malcolm Guite, Samuel Taylor Coleridge | tagged ,

CHRIST’S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY YEARS AGO Charles Lamb Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the dayspring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee—the dark pillar not yet turned—Samuel Taylor Coleridge—Logician, Metaphysician, Bard—How have I seen the casual passer through the cloisters stand still, intranced with admiration (while he the […]

The Growth of a Poet’s Mind

· by | in Malcolm Guite, Samuel Taylor Coleridge | tagged ,

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER Samuel Taylor Coleridge The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top. Lines 21–24 Today we begin the first of two parts into which Malcolm Guite’s book Mariner is divided.  The Prelude examines the foreground of  Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s  life which […]

Fighting God

· by | in C.S. Lewis, Herman Melville | tagged

MOBY DICK Herman Melville But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous—why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian’s […]

Spiritual Navigation

· by | in Malcolm Guite, Samuel Taylor Coleridge | tagged ,

ARCAEOLOGIAE PHILOSOPHICAE Epigraph I readily believe that there are more invisible beings in the universe than visible. But who will declare to us the nature of all these, the rank, relationships, distinguishing characteristics and qualities of each? What is it they do? Where is it they dwell? Always the human intellect circles around the knowledge of […]

An Astonishingly Prescient Poem

· by | in Malcolm Guite, Samuel Taylor Coleridge | tagged , ,

BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA Samuel Taylor Coleridge They and only they can acquire the philosophic imagination, the sacred power of self-intuition, who within themselves can interpret and understand the symbol, that the wings of the air-sylph are forming within the skin of the caterpillar; those only, who feel in their own spirits the same instinct, which impels […]

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

· by | in Fred Sanders, Friedrich Nietzche, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Mark Reynolds, Soren Kierkegaard, St. Augustine | tagged ,

GENEALOGY OF MORALS FIRST ESSAY GOOD AND EVIL, GOOD AND BAD Is there anyone who would like to take a little look down on and under that secret how man fabricates an ideal on earth? Who has the courage for that? Come on, now! Here is an open glimpse into this dark workshop. Just wait […]

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Modern (1821–1881)

· by | in Fyodor Dostoevsky, John Granger, John Mark Reynolds | tagged ,

THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV The Grand Inquisitor Ivan turned suddenly and went his way without looking back. It was just as Dmitri had left Alyosha the day before, though the parting had been very different. The strange resemblance flashed like an arrow through Alyosha’s mind in the distress and dejection of that moment. He waited a […]

Charles Darwin: Modern (1809–1882)

· by | in Charles Darwin, John Mark Reynolds, Phil Johnson | tagged ,

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES Chapter 14 As this whole volume is one long argument, it may be convenient to the reader to have the leading facts and inferences briefly recapitulated. That many and grave objections may be advanced against the theory of descent with modification through natural selection, I do not deny. I […]

Karl Marx: Modern (1818–1883)

· by | in Hunter Baker, John Mark Reynolds, Karl Marx, Plato, Thomas More, William Shakespeare | tagged , , , ,

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies. Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as Communistic by its opponents in […]

Alexis de Tocqueville: Modern (1805–1859)

· by | in Alexis de Tocqueville, Hugh Hewitt, John Mark Reynolds | tagged ,

DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA Chapter 5 Of the Manner in Which Religion in the United States Avails Itself of Democratic Tendencies This brings me to a final consideration, which comprises, as it were, all the others. The more the conditions of men are equalized and assimilated to each other, the more important is it for religions, […]

Tea-maker by Andrea Skevington

· by | in Andrea Skevington | tagged

Andrea Skevington lives in Suffolk, and draws inspiration from the world and the community around her.  Her work includes poetry, stories – mainly for children, and inspirational work in the Christian tradition. she has worked with children in schools and churches, and has a particular interest in retelling the Bible.  She has led retreats and creative writing workshops for adults, spoken at festivals, and share my poetry and my thoughts.  She also writes for Quiet Spaces “A creative response to God’s love”, and has written meditations on Women in Genesis, the medieval mystical work The Cloud of Unknowing, the I Am sayings of Jesus, the poems of Emily Dickinson,  and many others.

Isaac Newton: Enlightenment (1642–1727)

· by | in Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, John Mark Reynolds, Malcolm Guite, William A. Dembski, William Blake | tagged ,

MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY The Principa Author’s Preface Since the ancients (as we are told by Pappus), made great account of the science of mechanics in the investigation of natural things; and the moderns, laying aside substantial forms and occult qualities, have endeavoured to subject the phænomena of nature to the laws of mathematics, […]

The Redemption of Hester Prynne by Gregory Wolfe

· by | in Gregory Wolfe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson | tagged

Gregory Wolfe is the founder and editor of Image—one of America’s leading literary journals. He also edits a literary imprint, Slant Books, through Wipf & Stock Publishers. In the fall of 2018, Wolfe will serve as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Visiting Scholar in Catholic Studies at Loyola University, Chicago. He was the founding director of the Seattle Pacific University MFA in Creative Writing program, where he continues to teach. Wolfe’s writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, and America. His books include Beauty Will Save the World, Intruding Upon the Timeless, and The Operation of Grace. Follow him on Twitter: @Gregory_Wolfe.

John Locke: Part Two Enlightenment (1632–1704)

· by | in Jamie Campbell, John Locke, John Mark Reynolds, Melissa Cain Travis | tagged ,

TWO TREATISES ON GOVERNMENT: SECOND TREATISE Chapter II Of the State of Nature §. 4. To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, […]

John Locke: Part One Enlightenment (1632–1704)

· by | in Janelle Klapausak, John Locke, John Mark Reynolds | tagged ,

AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING Book I An Inquiry into the understanding, pleasant and useful. Since it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over them; it is certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our labour to […]

William Shakespeare: Early Modern (1564–1616)

· by | in John Mark Reynolds, Melissa Schubert, William Shakespeare | tagged ,

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Act II, Scene I A hall in Leonato’s house Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others LEONATO: Was not Count John here at supper? ANTONIO: I saw him not. BEATRICE: How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after. HERO: He is of […]

A Mother’s Path by Kayla Hodges

· by | in Kayla Hodges

Kayla Hodges lives in Cypress, Texas and loves being at home learning her role as a mother to her sweet daughter, Eden Grace. After graduating from Baylor University, she and her husband Matthew began partnering in ministry together with Bridge Point Community Church, an Acts29 church plant that they have helped launch with dear friends in Cypress. Healthy vulnerability and offering hope to the hopeless are among Kayla’s deepest values. Kayla finds solace in writing and is passionate about her family, the local church, stewarding God’s Creation of this earth, and mental health awareness.

Miguel de Cervantes: Early Modern (1547–1616)

· by | in Glynn Young, John Mark Reynolds, Miguel de Cervantes, Robert Llizo | tagged ,

DON QUIXOTE Part I, Chapter I: Which Treats of the Character and Pursuits of the Famous Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the […]