Ruminate Magazine: Faith in Literature and Art

But, I just don’t want to let go of our phone – the one connected to my home, not my person. There issomething collective or communal about a home phone. It was the phone I fought over with my brother when he realized that girls were more than just irritating interruptions; it was the phone I carried into the bathroom and sat on the floor believing in my unalienable right to a private conversation. The phone rang and was usually picked up with no knowledge of what lay at the other end of that pulsing sound wave or optical fiber, always a surprise. And my phone number, just one, not office, cell, and home, was a part of my identity: 465-8258. I loved the sound of that rotary phone 4 click, click, click; 6 click-click-click; 5 click-click-click. People knew my number, it was an actual place, the place I sat down for dinner with my family at five o’clock sharp every weekday, the place where I lost time playing outside past dusk and hearing my Mom yell “Amy! Bedtime!,” the place I pulled the covers over my head at night to drown out sounds of frequent yelling. It was not some air wave connection that could find me on aisle 4 of Wal-mart or in the waiting room of my gynecologist. It connected my friends, family, and even strangers to my home, where I felt most me, painfully and sometimes happily me. So, here I am in 2007, fearful of relinquishing the home phone and afraid I will have no place to be found, no grounded connection.

Our theme for this issue is Epiphany and after struggling to find some large important event to write about, our contributors shook me back to reality and reminded me that epiphanies often occur in simple, everyday moments. In fact, it seems these simple moments were created for epiphanies. I read Paul Willis’ poem “Mariposa Grove” at the end of a busy, thoughtless day and found myself emotionally undone by the quiet revelations of a “wet meadow of deep woods.” In this issue, our artists have given us many wonderful gifts of simple transformation where “snapping peas between my teeth” feels like grace, “neutrons splitting isotopes” astound us; a cup of coffee “dissolves dreams, satisfies, and bides time,” and a photograph in a newspaper reminds us that joy is possible in the midst of intense suffering.

The season surrounding Epiphany, the twelfth day after Christmas, the night the Magi brought gifts to the newborn Christ, is a celebratory time. It is anticipated, longed for, and finally comes to fruition with food, gifts, and fellowship with friends and family. It is my temptation to think these events are trivial, that the act of creating, preparing, and eating food, or spending days thinking about and buying gifts for friends and family, or hanging lights for hours to then spend more hours removing them after a month or so is silly in the midst of the great suffering I see around me. And, maybe there are times that it is silly and should be set aside for pressing needs. But, I am reminded as in Ishmael Beah’s book A Long Way Gone that it is in these ordinary events that the human spirit finds rest. It is these ordinary events this ravaged, guilt-ridden boy soldier longed for. It is in
pursuit of these ordinary events that wars are fought and endured. 

God punctured time and space, changed the course of history with the birth of a weak infant to parents of little reputation and power. He provided the most epiphanic moment in history to an unremarkable time, place, and people. And for this, I am encouraged, because, except for my daydreams, I live in the ordinary and need to see the extraordinary in the tiny bug my daughter insists on keeping in her pocket during church, in the face of a friend listening shivering in a car outside a coffee shop, in the laughter-filled home that can, for a little longer, b reached at any time through a line of light extending from your home to mine. So, we at RUMINATE wish you many extraordinary ordinary moments this Advent season.


Love,
Amy Lowe

Post Script: In this issue, one particular story stretched the staff of RUMINATE, challenged our understanding of the structure and intentions of a story. Stephanie Dickinson’s “Klara’sBoy” is a story of murder, beautifully written and developed. We are shown events in a murderer’s childhood, abusive relationships and unrealized hopes; the murderer is humanized and even found to be worthy of pity. But the author, as do all good authors, puts the question of this murderer’s value and worth in our hands. We must decide whether one of the most horrific criminals in history can or should be forgiven, can or should be saved, and whether his murder or any murder is ever justified. What was the epiphany in this story? Was it one that was never seized? One that could have occurred in this boy’s childhood, a teacher confronting him about his cruelty to rats, or a mother standing up for him when his father threatened a beating? Or is it our epiphany, one that we might have while reading at the end of the day or in bed and struggling, hoping for this child to be scooped up and loved, to be shown grace, to be changed. In the end, we found our faith strengthened by the wrestling this story creates, and we hope the same for you.