by Kay Ahmed | Dec 6, 2018 | Creative Insights
“And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.” This line, from the sonnet Lin-Manuel Miranda shared as part of his award acceptance speech at the 2016 Tonys, reminded a world grieving over the brutal massacre at the...
by Kay Ahmed | Nov 8, 2018 | Creative Insights, Ministry on the Edge
We asked regular Bearings contributor Ellen McGrath Smith to gather some poems from Pittsburgh writers for our Tree of Life Special Issue. Alas, an email glitch kept the piece from getting to us before publication of the issue. We share them now as an opportunity for...
by social@thebtscenter.org | Mar 9, 2018 | 21stCenturyCulture, 21stCenturySpirituality, Art and Creativity
“Poetry makes nothing happen,” W.H. Auden famously wrote in “In Memory of W.B. Yeats.” And indeed, writing poetry often feels that way, since it’s on the fringes of both literature and public discourse. Writing in other genres—essays,...
by social@thebtscenter.org | Apr 7, 2017 | 21stCenturyReligion, 21stCenturySpirituality
With the year-in-year-out cycle of holidays—sacred and secular alike—it’s easy to think of Easter, and the resurgence of life that it celebrates, as a foregone conclusion. I remember going out to play one Good Friday afternoon when I was about 10; we kids were...
by social@thebtscenter.org | Dec 16, 2016 | 21stCenturyCulture, 21stCenturySpirituality, Bearings Review 2017
Everyone seems to want to beat up on 2016. On social media, it’s been referred to as a dumpster fire as well as a sentient creature that will rain down more of its wrath if it hears you maligning it. There are ample reasons why people—in my bubble, at least—want to...
