Faith in a Time of Faithlessness

They are lovely, your orange slices
and peignoirs, and especially that green
cockatoo, but why, poet, limit the mind
of God to a heaven of immutable fruit?
Perhaps belief must be wooed, much as anything
we hunger for.

Granted, pursuit is a young man’s game,
but in their eagerness, boys grab
too rashly at the inviolate: so faithful,
those green boys to their fruitful
strivings, while steadfast lovers
know faith can never be
plucked or shaken from the tree.
Faithless to grandiose pursuits, they
abide in quiet passionate persuasion.

Dear Reader,

Can I be direct with you?

War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.

First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.

But we can’t do it without readers like you.

Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.


Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.

Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.

GIVE NOW

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

You Can’t See Everything

Germán S. Díaz del Castillo

During marriage prep, my wife and I had to take the “Five Love Languages” test, a pseudoscientific…

Fjord’s Cold Reality

Charlotte Allen

Fjord, Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or–winning film, is the kind of movie you desperately want to…

A Culture of Parricide

Ephraim Radner

I learned a new word the other day: ­déploration. It’s the French, directly from the Latin, for “lament.”…