Justin Carlson

“Why Bother? Because right now, there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words.” ― Sean Thomas Dougherty

You want to give up.

You’ve been at this for so long, and today is one…

Lord,

this hammer is heavier

than I remember –

its weight

of rust and oak,

of time and mending,

restless in my grip.

Yet these calluses

were once blisters,

proof not of futile pleas, but of longings

that remember the…

On a weathered foundation,
Raise the scaffolding
So we can carry
paint and mortar
To abandoned corners.
Where plaster crumbles
And wallpaper curls,
To reveal golden edges
Long-veiled by idle hands.

Tendons groan
as we reach.
Our hearts,
With frail…

“It might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. . . . But perhaps God is strong enough…

Artist, you are more than what you produce.

You are a caregiver,

Whose aching hands, stained with color,

Show us how to hold

The peculiar weight of glory —

The wonder found

In something hoped-for,

In something lost.

Artist, you…

"And what is beauty?"

"Terror."

"Well said," said Julian. "Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.” (From The Secret History, by Donna Tartt)

"At some point, we have to wrestle…

"There is, in practice, no such thing as autonomy. There is only a distinction between responsible and irresponsible." — Wendell Berry

We live like ghosts.

Content with the discomfort of disembodiment, the unnatural rhythms of separation, the perishability of the…

“These are a few of my favorite things.” — The Sound of Music

There are a million reasons to stay alive.

But, we have days or seasons when we struggle to name one.

We slowly get out of bed with…

"I beg you to be patient with all the unresolved things in your heart." -- Rilke

Change is slow work.

It is an invitation to be human, to clear out the clutter of a well-curated life to make…

Artist, teach us how to pray.

Teach us how to pray slowly and wildly.

How to be childlike and unafraid in our need,

Clumsy with the chaos of our desires,

Yet eager to learn how to paint outside the lines,

…

There is a balm in Gilead To make the wounded whole, There is a balm in Gilead To heal the sin-sick soul.

— African-American Spiritual

There is a moment in the film Elizabeth when the queen (played by Cate Blanchett)…

“You’re a man who stops and listens. If that’s not the definition of friendship, it’s close enough for now.” -- From I Cheerfully Refuse, by Leif Enger

We lived the opposite of loneliness.

These words were said by my…