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Debra Rienstra

artscollege life

Doing Something Else

Calvin College, where I teach, faced another brutal round of budget cuts this fall, and not surprisingly, the arts took a hard hit. I lament this deeply, though I’m not complaining. I understand all the exigencies behind it, and I gratefully acknowledge that the process…
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January 9, 2016
silly

Rejected Christmas Carols

If the joy of Christmas ever breaks through the frenzy of event-going and present-wrangling and (for me) end-of-semester grading, it happens through music. This year, for instance, I sat in my city’s gorgeous basilica and listened to a youth choir perform a haunting, dissonant arrangement…
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December 26, 2015
liturgical yearspirituality

No Words Fall

It must begin with Zechariah’s silence. Nothing against poor old Zechariah. Who can blame him for asking a decent question? The text tells us that both he and Elizabeth were upright and blameless before the Lord. So even if Gabriel comes off as a little…
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December 11, 2015
memoirspirituality

Contentment

Grandma Theresa’s heart is extremely weak. No surprise, as it’s been pumping nonstop since before she was born in July of 1912. That’s the year the Titanic sank. We visited Grandma yesterday in her room at the assisted care facility. At the age of 103,…
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November 28, 2015
naturespirituality

Nothing is Wasted

I’d like to believe that when someone dies young, say from cancer at age 42, leaving a young family behind, I’d like to believe that “nothing is wasted.” That’s the sort of thing we say to each other: “Even though we don’t understand, his life…
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November 14, 2015
college lifeMichigan

Wolverine Pilgrimage

In the van on the way there, I wind up sitting in the way-back with my twelve-year-old niece. She is hopelessly bored, fiddling with her phone while the grownups discuss my college’s cuts to arts programs, the difficulties faced by arts organizations, recent discoveries concerning…
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October 17, 2015
naturepoetry

Japanese Autumn

Lines Composed in an Autumn Reverie, on Visiting the Japanese Garden one Friday Afternoon, October 2015. Chrysanthemums Huddled palms direct their longing west with every gust, great frond-arms and arrow-leaves jostling, clenching, splaying. Bright chrysanthemums ensconce them, basking in slanted light, steady and splendid.
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October 2, 2015