I’m staying in a place called the Sunrise Cabin, but there’s no sunrise—only an uneven cover of clouds that’s getting progressively more translucent as dawn breaks somewhere beyond them. I’m not sure […]
Storyline: starting the next chapter
Chris Mackowski
U2’s music and Seussian trees: a visit to Joshua Tree National Park
As beautiful as the landscape is as I near Joshua Tree National Park, the picture somehow doesn’t seem complete. Where are Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr.? Their 1987 […]
Storyline: The Improbable Philanthropist and other stories
Al Andrews makes an improbable philanthropist. “Philanthropists have lots of money,” Andrews says. “I didn’t have any.” Andrews is the first of half a dozen guest speakers who makes appearances during the […]
Storyline: Conference, Day One
“Did you come from a cold, wet place?” Donald Miller asks. A murmur of laughter ripples through the room. “That’s awesome,” he says, laughing. The weather in San Diego is in the […]
Storyline: Prologue
First in a series I’m forty-thousand feet above the Rocky Mountains. Denver is some ninety miles to my left and a long way down. I’ve lost the sun beyond the curve of […]
Wilderness worth getting lost in—a review of Lance Weller’s “Wilderness”
No Civil War battlefield offers a writer more metaphoric possibility than the Wilderness. Not only was the Wilderness a virtually impenetrable second-growth forest—“the dark, close wood” and “one of the waste places […]
Uganda Journal: heading home
Standing on the Equator, I’m as centered as I’ve felt during my entire journey. A few feet to my left, in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s a sign that says “Did you know?” […]
Uganda Journal: Africa’s darkest heart
Final words, written in shit: “I never for my husband was killed….” Scrawled on concrete, marred by blood: “Cry far help me the dead.” The lost voices of 300,000 dead, forgotten beneath […]
Uganda Journal: making matooke
Because he’s back home from secondary school for the holiday, Simon is in charge of the kitchen at the Bethlehem School this month. Although only seventeen, he’s easily one of the best […]
Uganda Journal: a walk to the well
The well at Nakagongo sits in a low valley, with a web of trails that lead down to it from the surrounding hillsides. It’s not an especially grueling walk and not especially […]
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 