Author: Avellina Balestri
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Shattered Mirror
When Nordic winter reigns from night to noon, with darkness, and the daring of her lights, a tale is told, and so I tell it now… Read more
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Sheath and Knife: A Star Wars Fanfiction
“The galaxy will not know light unless you are out of it, Kylo Ren!” Rey’s voice was as furious as it was broken, and she drew her light saber to challenge him. Read more
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Gloria: A Hunger Games Fanfiction
Christmas. It’s an old word from an old world. Oh sure, some people still celebrate smatterings of it in Panem, but it’s not as if they remember much of the story that started it all, not really. Read more
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A Gift of Thistle: A Braveheart Fanfiction
Mirron, come back…come back to me, before the lights behind my eyes are put out. You stood at the graveside with me before, in the years of my youth, and have kept your post there… Read more
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Slaves, Sons, and Submission: Christian and Muslim Understandings of God
I believe it’s fair to say that all three of the Abrahamic faiths see God as both transcendent and imminent, and also see His attributes in a way that encompasses both justice and mercy… Read more
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C.S. Lewis and the Calormenes: A Commentary on Narnia’s Arabesque Baddies
If Lewis had really wanted to do an analysis of the Christian and Muslim theological gap, he should have had both groups worship “The Emperor Across the Sea”, and then have differing views on Aslan… Read more
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Saint Hubert’s Hunt
Hail, Cross between the antlers beaming, brighter than the brightest pain! Hunted as the wild stag, white as host-to-tongue, we sinners long to savor Thee! Read more
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The Crossing of Christopher
The salmon that swam around his legs spoke to him in their ancient tongue, “Thou bear upon thy shoulders the weight of the universe.” Read more
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Day of Wrath: Sweeney Todd and the Search for Salvation
Perversely, Sweeney seems to believe this type of purging will be his “salvation”, which he sings in the jarringly brilliant number “Epiphany”, as he challenges men to come and sit in his barber chair and be “welcome to the grave.” Read more
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Prodigal: A Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Fanfiction
Where has he gone? The son that was once my own, raised alone without a mother’s tenderness? Has he vanished into a world where reality has been turned on its head? Read more
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Ferguson’s Grave
Ferguson, lying beneath cold stones, gray with lichen clinging, do you yearn for the sounds of home? Can you hear me singing? Read more
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The Priest’s House
Cleaning out a priest’s house is a strange thing. I am like a sheep who finds the shepherd gone far away… Read more
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The West Wind Comes Walking: A Lord of the Rings Fanfiction
Blade swings, singing the song of ages, the song of passing from one realm to the next, the song of pulsing blood overflowing. Is it an anthem, a dirge, or a lullaby? Boromir knows not… Read more
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Inherit the Earth: A Planet of the Apes Fanfiction
Once, many ages past, in the ancient stories of the human race, you cried out you had no king but Caesar, and you lifted high one of your kind to mocked and spat upon. Read more
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God’s Good Chaos: A Reflection on the Problem of Evil
I do not believe every movement of the natural world as it carries out its prescribed functions is so much predestined as permitted, and yet it is the “backdrop” of our own ability to grow, to relate, to love, to move, to have our being. Read more
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Adam, Christ, and Evolution: Seeking Meaning in Our Primordial Past
The very fact that we are able to say “Thou” to God means that we are able to disobey and reject Him, to turn away from the “Eden” of spiritual union with Him and choose our own path of disorder. Read more
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Italia
Empire of the Heart and Land of the Eternal, you shake me to the core with your fire-fused mountains and crumbling foundations, fierce as your passion for living untamed. Read more
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Come, My Love: An Analysis of Thomas Merton’s Mystical Poem “Pass Through My Will”
The poem calls for the coming of the Divine Lover, as “all through the night I lay longing, eagerly to wait for love’s union”. There is no shame in this, but rather a reveling in the anticipation as it was meant to be, not cheap, not base, but holistic between body and soul. Read more
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Building a Bridge and Drawing a Line: A Way Forward for Traditional Religious and LGBT Communities
I believe in a kind of “live and let live” approach, trying hard to walk the tight-rope of respecting each other’s freedom and boundaries. Perhaps we need, more than anything, to get more comfortable with the presence of the other… Read more
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Pilgrimage to a Small Island: A Britophile’s Memoir
Oh, my little island, do I have to go away so soon? There are too many fragile, aching sentiments left in me now, and I keep hunting for you everywhere I go. Read more