Philip Bess: Urban Design and Sacred Space

Philip is Professor of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, where he specializes in urban design and theory, with a particular interest in Catholic and classical humanist intellectual and artistic traditions in the context of modern American life and the contemporary culture of architecture and urban design

Stefanie Knauss: Religious Identity in Media

Stefanie is Professor of Constructive Theology in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University. Her teaching and research focus on religion, media and gender, the role of body in religious traditions, issues of gender and sexuality in theology, and the theological engagement with visual arts, film

C. Christopher Smith: On the Spiritual Discipline of Conversation

C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books and author of Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus (co-authored with John Pattison); Reading for the Common Good, How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church; along with others. In this interview, and especially from his perspective as an editor, Chris shares about

4 Poems by Janice L. Freytag

The Way It Begins Before you can write, you’ll need a pen. There is nothing but you in a bare room, so you sacrifice a finger from your left hand, let the bone bleach, then sharpen it on your eye teeth. Before you can write, you’ll need ink. You sacrifice another finger, drain the blood, then sweeten it with spittle. Then you’ll need a scroll. You cut off your arm at the elbow, stretch the skin taut on a rack of bones, secure it with rubber-band muscles. You’ll write for a while, maybe five days or so. When your pen