By Dayna Patterson Dayna Patterson is a writer, editor, textile artist, macro photographer, amateur fungophile, and Thea-curious recovering Mormon. Find her at daynapatterson.com. As the camera zooms out to capture the last scene—a paved road winding through Switzerland’s rolling green—I feel myself about to break. We’re sitting on the bed in pajamas, me and my …
Category: Issue 188
“Still Mormon” and “Articles of New Faith”
Or, right-click here to download the audio file: “Still Mormon” and “Articles of New Faith” Still Mormon by Dayna Patterson 1. I’m Mormon the way stars—rubbed out at noon, robbed by sun—still burn 2. The way a geode empty of its quartz is still stone 3. The way a …
Communicable
By Anita Tanner Or right-click here to download the audio file: Communicable “Religion is like small pox. If you get a good dose, you wear scars.” —Vardis Fisher Dosage: Words stretch and elongate, strain and break from overuse, disintegrate or bind too tight, the life blood cut off from appendages, sermons …
Advent: Moose in Moonlight
By Anita Tanner Or right-click here to download the audio file: Advent: Moose in Moonlight …he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. —Isaiah 53:2 …
In My Father’s House
By Cecil Morris Or right-click here to download the audio file: In My Father’s House The house that dementia built my father filled with people. It hummed with talk both day and night, a host of long lost relatives returned to relive stories he had never shared with me. Sometimes I was …
Four Paws Full
by R. A. Christmas Or right-click here to download the audio file: Four Paws Full Dog had his paws full. He’d run Bad Pup off because Bad wanted his job (and glory) but Bad took a third of of a litter with him. There was hell to pay, with Bad (The …
Still Mormon
By Dayna Patterson Or right-click here to download the audio file: Still Mormon 1. I’m Mormon the way stars—rubbed out at noon, robbed by sun—still burn 2. The way a geode empty of its quartz is still stone 3. The way a whisper is still a breath carved by tongue …
Articles of New Faith
By Heather Holland Or right-click here to download the audio file: Articles of New Faith Invocation. A novice—raging away from the charred and blistered home of my former faith— I am called by the air in my lungs and the dirt beneath my feet to stand and to breathe, to begin …
Virga: The Long Streaks of Grief
By Anita Tanner Or right-click here to download the audio file: Virga: The Long Streaks of Grief Initially it’s a downpour you fear will never stop, but it’s cleansing in the sense that there’s an emptying, and you reach utter bottom where the dregs live. Not that you wear your grief …
Call Me by My Name
By Stephen Carter Or click here to download the audio file: Call Me by My Name When I was in first grade, I decided to change my name. Well, not change it, exactly, but switch it. My parents had called me by my middle name since I was born—mainly, I think, …