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Essays

The Arc of Repentance
By Helen W. Mallon
In the wake of a near-affair, a married woman recognizes a long-standing pattern of finding her identity in other people and in her own obsessions. While turning back to God in brokenness brings peace, she realizes that lifelong repentance will bring a new identity.

Virginity
By David McGlynn
The concept of purity isn't one that is held in very high esteem these days. Our spiritual lives and emotions seem to follow our bodies into a netherworld where there is only isolation and the destruction of the self. David McGlynn recounts the story of a brutal crime that led to the loss of a treasured friend, and how that loss has changed his view of the body.

Studies

The Death of the Book
By S. David Mash
Rumors of the demise of printed matter have been wildly exaggerated. In the 1980s, pundits predicted that books would be replaced by computer screens, digital media, even "book-reading robots." In this study, the author examines the e-books phenomenon, seeking a synergy between electronic and traditional publishing.

Fiction

Line of Duty
By Albert Haley

Friday Night in Kizmack
By Carrie Sherman

Nonfiction

On Another Road: Pilgrimage to Fátima
By Charles Edward Brooks

Poetry

The dark
By Luci Shaw

The Woodlands Have a Rank and Moldy Smell
By Susan St. Martin


THE WOODLANDS HAVE A RANK AND MOLDY SMELL

By Susan St. Martin

the woodlands have a rank
    and moldy smell
like a brandy drinking
    tobacco smoking
    old woman
who knows better
    than to take
    her sweater off
on a warm day in november

who knows best
    what to recall
    of summer's eden
and how much to regret
    this exile, this fall



Susan St. Martin lives with her husband in Adamsville, Rhode Island. Her poems have recently appeared in First Things, The Osprey and The Westport Harvest Festival Anthology.