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Into Hellfire Via Portland Frost

July 1, 2013 by Rick Bonn 1 Comment

From the first line, I love this book, and it’s not even the first line but the quote before the first line that jump starts the whole thing. See, it’s Flannery O’Connor.

I’m haunted by O’Connor. This southern woman with pheasants on her farm who died before forty and wrote short stories about serial killers shooting good Christian grandmas and four-year-old boys drowning themselves in baptismal rivers. [Read More]

Filed Under: Books, Entertainment, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: A Prayer for Owen Meany, A Very Minor Prophet, Ayn Rand, Flannery O'Connor, Frederick Buechner, James Bernard Frost, John Irving

Surfing Pop Culture: Who Wants the Truth?

January 16, 2013 by Rick Bonn 7 Comments

Does it even matter anymore that light sabers aren’t real? Or that Lance Armstrong used drugs to win races? Or that Manti Te’o’s dead girlfriend never existed? Or that faith, as the filmed LIFE OF PI suggests, needn’t be based on truth to be valid?

[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Entertainment, Feature, Movies, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Frederick Buechner, Lance Armstrong, Life of Pi film, light sabers, Manti Te'o girlfriend, Star Wars religion

To a Mentor Lost…From a Child Found

April 13, 2012 by Rick Bonn 5 Comments

Out of darkness and balloons, Jim Young stepped into my life. It was Intro to Theater, freshman year, and I had slid from harsh daylight into a darkened womb called Arena Theater, a black box theater at Wheaton College in Illinois. The balloons were tied to the floor, suspended mid-air, so that we had to walk through them like trees…

Filed Under: Culture, Feature, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Arena Theater, Frederick Buechner, Jim Young, Stephen Sondheim, Wheaton College

More Gleanings

Memoir

February 13, 2026 By Steven Mayer Leave a Comment

End of the Street

August 4, 2025 By Steven Mayer 2 Comments

Here Try Some of This Ointment

April 17, 2024 By Watt Childress 4 Comments

We are the Luminaries

August 8, 2023 By Watt Childress 2 Comments

Open Letter for Creation’s Caregivers

June 19, 2023 By Watt Childress 5 Comments

Additional Wisdom...

Readers’ Comments

  • R²
    January 7, 2026 at 7:19 am
    on Smart travel money helps care for places we love
    Couldn't agree with you more. We're dealing with that all right now trying to get the air museum in tillamook
  • Pam Wade
    December 6, 2025 at 8:29 am
    on Adventures with author Charles de Lint
    The first work I read by Charles de Lint was Greenmantle followed by Moonheart. Since then there has not been
  • Trudy
    October 8, 2025 at 2:42 pm
    on Hankering for Paradise: My Discovery of The Wave Crest Inn
    I stayed at the Wave Crest for a night in the late 70s. If I remember right, the cost was
  • K H
    September 24, 2025 at 8:09 am
    on The Genocide of the American Indian, and Their Refusal to Die
    This response is far from timely, I know. But in honor of the ancestors I thank you for helping us
  • Ronald Logan Buchansn
    September 22, 2025 at 12:35 am
    on Three Poems and a Mountain
    Logan, on my annual summer browsing at Jupitor's I read "Freewriting In A Parked Car" and instantly purchased your book.
More Comments...

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