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How We Pray

I often feel great disjunction between my own experience of prayer and what many people say about it—not only in books, but in conversation, in church, and in many other settings. Continue Reading »

The Genius of Wordsworth

“I wandered lonely as a cloud.” So begins a famous poem of William Wordsworth’s, one that was often taught to schoolchildren back when memorizing poetry was part of education. The poet comes upon “a crowd, / A host, of golden daffodils.” The flowers flutter and dance before him, their . . . . Continue Reading »

Leaving Riga

Romanticism: A German Affair by rüdiger safranski northwestern, 376 pages, $35 During the early Romantic era, subjective sentiments and an often solipsistic quest for personal fulfillment began to challenge Enlightenment ­ideals of rational dialogue. John Keats’s 1817 plea “for a life of . . . . Continue Reading »

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