Madeline Freeman

Whether or not we ever “go on pilgrimage” like Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims—whether we ever leave the place we were born—our lives are journeys: as people of faith, we go where God sends us, and God goes with us everywhere (although sometimes hidden or disguised). As most true pilgrims discover, the journey is rarely an uncomplicated affair of “there and back again.” The course of our ordinary lives tends to follow a grittier, less predictable trajectory: we start out, we lose our way; we...

Nature isn't only in a park or wilderness. It's right outside our door. Sometimes it's on the door or comes inside to find us. Nature is the jumping spider on the screen, the assassin bug in the shower, and the cluster of ladybugs at the lamp. It is the moss on brick where gutters spill, a sycamore sprout in the storm drain, and the trash can lid turned into a bird bath.

Joanna Brichetto is a neurodiverse, late-blooming naturalist with a sharp eye. Despite having chronic illnesses, she spends much of her time exploring nature and has an infectious, almost zealous love for the flora and fauna near and in her Nashville home. In This Is How a Robin Drinks, Brichetto weaves observation, reflection, and commentary with unsentimental wit and an earthy humor into an urban almanac of fifty-three short lyrical essays.

Each piece offers a sketch of everyday wonders in everyday habitat loss. Nature is the dead sparrow in the pickup line at the elementary school, a full moon over the electric substation, and the cicada chorus that doesn't make a days-long migraine any better (but doesn't make it any worse either). Nature is under our feet, over our heads, and beside us—the very places we need to know first. Arranged by season, the pieces in this collection celebrate nature—just as it is—on the sidewalk and in the backyard, the park, and the parking lot.

Dwelling in the Wilderness examines how contemporary Benedictine Roman Catholic monks in the American West fall in love with their landscapes and how, in troubled times, we might do the same. Jason Brown travels to four monasteries—the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California; the Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux in Vina, California; Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey in Carlton, Oregon; and the Monastery of Christ in the Desert in Abiquiu, New Mexico—and spends time with the monks there, following their daily routine of prayer and tending to the land. He learns how the places they inhabit are essential to their daily spiritual practice and how they construct deeper theological meaning from the natural world.

Looking for the Cherries is a story of persistence and triumph inspired by the late Alberto Mijangos, the beloved and widely collected San Antonio artist, teacher, and longtime promoter of Mexican culture. Authored by Alberto’s wife Kay and illustrated by his daughter Laura, this joyous book recounts important milestones in his life, beginning with his arduous trek from Mexico City as a young man. Told through the eyes of Alberto’s fictitious granddaughter, Frankie, this story is a revelat...

In spring 2014 Peggy Kokernot Kaplan, a former Trinity University athlete and cofounder of the women’s track team, emailed her alma mater’s athletic department asking the school to post statistics from the team’s 1975 season. It’s no surprise that they couldn’t fulfill her request, for Trinity had sparse records from the 1970s—not just for track and field but for most performances by female athletes before 1991, when the school joined a NCAA Division III conference. What started as a humble emai...