Ruminate Magazine: Faith in Literature and Art

Editor's Note  

Fiction
Marylee MacDonald - Regret
Tim Wirkus - Crosswords
Kristin Ginger - The Geography of Bones

Nonfiction
Frederick Buechner - Our Last Drive Together

Art
Steven David Johnson - Yellow Dress in the Kitchen, Maggie and the Beast
   Traces of Place, New Cul-De-Sac!
Heidi Zeiger - Stories from Hotel Iveria

Those familiar with the magazine may already know of RUMINATE’s affinity for “benedictions” (which in Greek translates to “a good word” and in English “a blessing”). We devoted our entire fourth issue to the theme of benedictions, and I am still fascinated by this etymological discovery— that others have translated words into blessings. In fact, this idea that good words are indeed blessings has become a cornerstone of our editorial philosophy, truly shaping RUMINATE. I (along with the other staff members) long for good words, for the words to understand good things, and we don’t think we’re alone. And because this issue is an open theme, I thought it the perfect opportunity to share an inheritance of benedictions that has fed and shaped RUMINATE.

by Julie Hensley

It started in Big Stone Gap in the front yard
where my sisters and I fashioned whatever we could find—
tricycles, broom handles, a leaf rake—into a kind of dressage course. 
She lay with a book by our plastic pool,
shaded her eyes and watched us weave through on stick ponies,
clicking our tongues, avoiding the holes
the dog dug by the porch and along the wrought iron fence.

by Joe Moffett

In church the Decalogue rings out and I go
down the list of sins committed.  Even though

by Frederick Buechner

*The following is an excerpt from "Our Last Drive Together."  

It was while my mother was staying with us in Vermont that the fatal phone call came. It was from Incoronata, the woman who for years had been her factotum and mainstay in the New York apartment that she rarely left except for occasional visits to us or trips to the doctor or the hearing aid people who were always selling her new models, none of which, she said, were any damn good.

Steven David Johnson. Maggie and the Beasts. Tralfamadore Farm, Virginia.

Steven David Johnson is associate professor of visual and communication arts at Eastern Mennonite University. He lives in an 1890’s farmhouse across the street from the North Fork of the Shenandoah River with his wife and artistic collaborator, Anna Maria, and their two children. Visit stevendavidjohnson.com
to view more images from this series as well as Anna Maria Johnson’s mixed media response to the theme of place.