The American Scholar/"hope toward God"

Whenever I think of my favorite magazines, I think of The New Yorker and Cat Fancy. In fact, I think these are the two preeminent publications in not just the U.S. but the world.

I've been meaning to mention, though, how much I also enjoy The American Scholar. It's a quarterly, and it is worth your time. I've seen this essay by Christian Wiman linked to in several places. It's about getting sick at a young age, about loving someone through that experience, and about stumbling toward an understanding of God. It begins like this, and you should read the rest:

Though I was raised in a very religious household, until about a year ago I hadn’t been to church in any serious way in more than 20 years. It would be inaccurate to say that I have been indifferent to God in all that time. If I look back on the things I have written in the past two decades, it’s clear to me not only how thoroughly the forms and language of Christianity have shaped my imagination, but also how deep and persistent my existential anxiety has been. I don’t know whether this is all attributable to the century into which I was born, some genetic glitch, or a late reverberation of the Fall of Man. What I do know is that I have not been at ease in this world.