Category: Uncategorized
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Some Writing Around the Web
I had a number of things published in the past few days around the web: For the Lunch Ticket blog, I wrote about what it means to sit alone in my room listening to music and how it connected me to the wider world. You can read it here. For Issue IV of Variety Pack,…
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“Once Again, the Western” in New Critique
I have a new essay, “Once Again, the Western” published in New Critique. In it, I consider Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and how Quentin Tarantino, who once made a movie about Nazi-hunting, cannot face the Nazis of today because he shares in their anxiety. This essay is the third in my series of…
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I Still Hear You: The Best of 2020
I realized I forgot to post this here, and I wanted to include it for anyone out there who may be reading but does not follow me on social media. In 2013, I began to blog about my favorite albums of the year right here. I’ve done it every year since. At the start of…
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nonsermon #8: my soul
Originally posted on NEW SOUTH: by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor A few months ago, I bought some flowers for my wife. She likes Queen Anne’s Lace, Anne being her grandmother’s name and their shared favorite flower, but the florist had none, so I settled for a mixture of orange and white flowers, the names of which I…
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nonsermon #7: my church
Originally posted on NEW SOUTH: by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor It’s true what they say, though acknowledging this doesn’t make it easier to accept: sometimes you can’t go home. I was exiting a toxic relationship, searching for a place within my friendships, and for the first time in my life wondering who I was, worrying it wasn’t…
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nonsermon #6: my ghosts
Originally posted on NEW SOUTH: by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor I’ve long been drawn to the idea of ghosts. At first, I was fascinated by the ghost as symbol: what it means to have something hanging over your head or within your psyche. How you are haunted by what you do and don’t do, by what happens…
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nonsermon #5: my prayers
Originally posted on NEW SOUTH: by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer: what it does, how different people practice it, if it works. Mostly, I’d like to know why it worked for me for so many years, then it didn’t. I cannot place the moment it happened, but over time, when I…
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nonsermon #4: my unbelief
Originally posted on NEW SOUTH: by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor Although these nonsermons are decidedly against preaching, I am still drawn to a particular Gospel narrative that speaks to me even now. The story of Matthew 9 states that when a man asks Jesus to rid his son of a bad spirit, Jesus tells him that all…
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nonsermon #3: my meanings
Originally posted on NEW SOUTH: by Ben Llewellyn-Taylor For most of my life, Christianity defined my experiences of meaning-making in this world. I was raised in the church, came to my own beliefs in high school and college, and shaped my understanding of the world around mine and others’ interpretations of the Bible. When I began to…
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nonsermon #2: my selves
Originally posted on NEW SOUTH: by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor If you’ll forgive me, I’m going to use this space to talk about myself, because I am both the subject I know the best and also—it sometimes seems—not at all. As these nonsermons are inspired by e.e. cummings’ nonlectures, I am drawn to his reasoning for spending…
Ben Lewellyn-Taylor 