"If you are true, then I am also true."
Whenever I speak of Image Journal, I like to recall that I bought the first issue for 50 pence at the Greenbelt Festival in 1992. That was a big weekend for me. I was so overwhelmed by the awesomeness of Greenbelt that, when I found myself laid low by a crippling migraine, I believed God was warning me against making an idol of the thing. It occurs to me that I’m nearing my thirtieth year of usually wishing I was at Greenbelt.
But back to Image, that first issue had an interview with Frederick Buechner which opened my heart and mind to better ways of seeing myself and others. Specifically, he hinted toward a conception of Christ which embraces the whole of human culture instead of bringing a spirit of negation to whatever doesn’t fit within our preferred ideology. I read it over and over again and held to that particular volume for dear life. I still have it, along with a stack of Greenbelt programs. These items are like tokens of a genuinely ecumenical sensibility that’s worked on me ever since. I believe this process continues.
These memories came rushing upon me this morning as I read one of the most helpful, moving, and evocative essays I’ve ever encountered. I’ve read Image religiously, from time to time, for most of my life, but this is the first time it’s taken me to a new way of seeing on the level—not that' it’s a hierarchy or anything—similar to that Buechner interview. The essay’s called, “A Spider, an Arab, and a Muslim Walk into a Cave,” and the author is the poet, Fady Joudah. It’s breathtaking. I desperately want to hear what folks make of it. And I intend to read everything I can find from Joudah from here on out. Give it some time. It’s long and lovely.