Tag Archives: Resurrection

It’s Your Limbs He Comes to Fill

By Robin Bates | Published: October 21, 2023

Mary Karr’s poem on the resurrection imagines Jesus longing for life and returning to fill us in turn.

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Ukraine: What Would Leo and Fyodor Do?

By Robin Bates | Published: June 21, 2023

Dostoevsky and Tolstoy’s novels work as indictments of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Breaking Bread at Emmaus

By Robin Bates | Published: April 22, 2023

Levertov says that seeing Jesus’s resurrection as no more than a metaphor is not enough for her. She requires a tangible miracle.

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Blazing Lilies, a Prayer Heard & Answered

By Robin Bates | Published: April 8, 2023

Mary Oliver’s “Morning Poem” works as a fitting verse for Easter, with its vision of new creation–which for her occurs every day.

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Out of Black Ponds, Water Lillies

By Robin Bates | Published: April 16, 2022

“Morning Poem” works as an Easter poem because every morning, as Oliver sees it, is a mini-resurrection.

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See, This Coal Has Touched Your Lips

By Robin Bates | Published: January 29, 2022

The image of God touching the lips of Isaiah and Jeremiah shows up in C.S. Lewis’s “Voyage of the Dawn Treader.”

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Feeding This Feverish Plot

By Robin Bates | Published: April 17, 2021

Mary Oliver’s “Fish” may be her interpretation of the post-Resurrection story of Jesus eating boiled fish.

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The Dreadful Sound of Trump (not that one)

By Robin Bates | Published: August 20, 2019

Wednesday On Monday I hosted what proved to be a lovely luncheon (an onion tart, ratatouille, and a trifle) for Vanderbilt University Librarian Valerie Hotchkiss, who was in Sewanee to discuss a presentation I will be giving at the university on the card game Speculation. Jane Austen fans will recognize it as the game played […]

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The Old Wild Place Beyond All Shame

By Robin Bates | Published: June 1, 2019

My friend Sue Schmidt alerted me to this Easter season meditation by Richard Rohr that uses a David Whyte poem to explain what Jesus meant when he said, “Anyone who wants to save his life must lose it. Anyone who loses her life will find it.” Rohr believes that Jesus is not calling for people […]

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