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Articles by Fred Bahnson
The Forest Beyond – Jeremy Seifert and Fred Bahnson
Fred Bahnson is the author of Soil and Sacrament, and his essays have appeared in Harper’s, The Sun, Orion, Oxford American, and Best American Spiritual Writing. His essay “On the Road with Thomas Merton,” originally published in Emergence Magazine, was selected by Robert MacFarlane for Best American Travel Writing 2020.
Guardians of Memory
In August 2021, Fred Bahnson accompanied Father Columba Stewart, a Benedictine monk dedicated to preserving religious texts in zones of conflict, to Gao, Mali. One year later, Bahnson and Stewart reflect on their journey in terms both spiritual and tangible. Stewart tells the story of his life’s work and details the importance of digitizing texts—regardless of faith—and of forming human connections across religious boundaries to overcome historical bias and inaccuracy.
Guardians of Memory
Last August I found myself aboard a United Nations plane high above the Sahel, the vast semiarid region stretching across West Africa, whose swells of sand and rock look from the air like an inland sea. Beside me was Father Columba Stewart, a Benedictine monk. Columba is in his mid-sixties, with a closely trimmed head and wire-rimmed glasses.
An Unbroken Grace – Fred Bahnson
Writer Fred Bahnson is the author of Soil and Sacrament: A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith, and his essays have appeared in Harper’s, The Sun, Orion, Oxford American, and The Best American Spiritual Writing. He is a recipient of the Kellogg Food and Community Fellowship, the North Carolina Artist Fellowship, and the Terry Tempest Williams Fellowship for Land and Justice at the Mesa Refuge. He lives with his family in southwestern Montana.
Spring 2021 | 2021 | Issues | Notre Dame Magazine | University of Notre Dame
Features Goodness Gracious by Michael N. McGregor After a year of stress and strain, disturbing events and bad news, here are some stories that positively offer reasons for hope and gratitude.
An Unbroken Grace | Notre Dame Magazine | University of Notre Dame
When I first arrived at the home of Barry Lopez ’66, ’68M.A. one November day in 2018, he pointed to a fresh Douglas fir stump and said, “We had to put down that tree.” The Douglas fir was one of many old-growth trees surrounding Barry’s home at Finn Rock, Oregon, along the McKenzie River. The tree had become diseased and Barry worried that it might fall on the house, so a few days before my visit, he and a neighbor got out their chainsaws and put down the tree.
Keeping the World in Being: Meditations on Longing – Fred Bahnson
In pursuit of a contemplative inner life amid a world in upheaval, Fred Bahnson meditates on maintaining an attentive heart. 1. On this late October morning, when I climb the stairs to begin my morning practice, I look out my office window to see, in midflight, a covey of Hungarian partridges. The huns, as they are called here in Montana, have flown down from an adjoining wheat field, on a small rise to the north. On the ground lies ten inches of new snow.
Sons of Noah - Image Journal
Reading from Two Books: Nature, Scripture, and Evolution In the Middle Ages, philosophers and theologians described nature as a book, a coherent work in which we could glimpse the mind of God. Like scripture, the book of nature bore the divine imprint—the Imago Dei—and the two books were seen as complementary.
The Gate of Heaven Is Everywhere
All happy religious families are alike; each unhappy religious family is unhappy in its own way. The family of American Christianity has been unhappy for quite some time, so much so that it’s hard for many of us to imagine that it could be otherwise. The past four years have brought these feuds into the open. For Catholics, there is the glaring pedophilia scandal.
The Underground Life of Prayer
The following is excerpted from Soil and Sacrament: A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith by Fred Bahnson, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster, Inc. The book tells the story of the author’s series of pilgrimages to communities that integrate religious practice, love for place, and the production of food, including Pentecostal coffee roasters in Washington State, young Jewish farmers in Connecticut, and, in the following section, monks raising oyster mushrooms in South Carolina. Printed by permission.
On the Road with Thomas Merton – Emergence Magazine
Writer Fred Bahnson is the author of Soil and Sacrament, and his essays have appeared in Harper’s, The Sun, Orion, Oxford American, and Best American Spiritual Writing. His essay “On the Road with Thomas Merton,” originally published in Emergence Magazine, was selected by Robert MacFarlane for Best American Travel Writing 2020.
The Day After
On the morning of December 22, 2012, the first day of the New World, a small tribe of humans gathered at the entrance to Pisgah National Forest in hopes of finding something to eat. Our destination was Catawba Falls, whose elevation was lower and warmer than nearby Asheville, North Carolina, allowing for a wider array of winter solstice pickings for the fallout shelter.
22 Noteworthy Food and Farming Books for Summer Reading—and Beyond | Civil Eats
It’s the height of summer and the perfect time to spend some time with the bounty of food and farming books that have hit bookshelves in recent months. Whether you’re lounging on a beach, repairing in the woods, or seeking a respite from the heatwaves blanketing much of the country, we’ve put together a list of 22 books worth reading—including suggestions from Civil Eats’ writers, books from our recent coverage, and some of the books on our to-read lists.
Farmed Out - The Sun Magazine
Driving north from Wichita, Kansas, toward Salina on a warm day last October, I saw an oil-well pump sitting in the middle of a sorghum field. And not just one. As I drove, I saw hundreds more, maybe thousands, all surrounded by amber waves of grain. Like giant, insatiable gulls, they bobbed their heads up and down, up and down, gulping black crude from the earth’s depths. Oil wells in farm fields.
The Day After
On the morning of December 22, 2012, the first day of the New World, a small tribe of humans gathered at the entrance to Pisgah National Forest in hopes of finding something to eat. Our destination was Catawba Falls, whose elevation was lower and warmer than nearby Asheville, North Carolina, allowing for a wider array of winter solstice pickings for the fallout shelter.
Like a ten-minute egg
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The Interrogator: Six Questions for Glenn Carle
A career clandestine-services officer in the CIA, Glenn Carle drew an unusual assignment in the fall of 2002. He was sent to serve as the case officer of an Afghan merchant who had been seized and rendered, and who was believed to be Osama bin Laden’s “banker.” Carle quickly discerned, however, that the Agency’s suspicions were unjustified — what followed was a frustrating effort by Carle to win his release.
On simple human decency
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Trump and Consequences
Let’s review the terrible prospects for at least the next four years. A pathologically narcissistic man, a kind of plutocratic lout, at the head of the most powerful country in the world. The executive branch of that country’s government filled with military men who are paranoid virtually to the point of psychosis and who are in addition, like their commander-in-chief, men of questionable temperament, little given to reflection and even less so to humility.
America’s Ancestry Craze
The percentage breakdowns given on sites like 23andMe cover only the past 500 or so years, offering a very limited glimpse of users’ historical interconnectedness. Ultimately, of course, we’re all related — our first ancestors all originated in the same place. Henry Louis Gates has argued that genealogy and genetics research will “revolutionize our understanding of American history and also our concept of race” in ways that were previously impossible.
Theaters of Manhattan and Brooklyn, Then and Now
"She glanced across the waiting room at a television playing a birth-control ad and laughed darkly. 'Jesus, Lord, it would be so nice if someone just pushed me down a flight of stairs.'" "As we shall see, for the sort of people who write and edit the opinion pages of the Post, there was something deeply threatening about Sanders and his political views." "When Matti invited me on a tour of the neighborhood, I asked about security.
Raincoats, Alekhovshchina, Leningrad Oblast, Russia
"She glanced across the waiting room at a television playing a birth-control ad and laughed darkly. 'Jesus, Lord, it would be so nice if someone just pushed me down a flight of stairs.'" "As we shall see, for the sort of people who write and edit the opinion pages of the Post, there was something deeply threatening about Sanders and his political views." "When Matti invited me on a tour of the neighborhood, I asked about security.
How to Rig an Election
Published in the November 2012 issue of Harper’s Magazine, “How to Rig an Election” explores the long history of vote rigging in the United States. Read the full story here. From the earliest days of the republic, American politicians (and much of a cynical populace) saw vote rigging as a necessary evil. Since the opposition was assumed to be playing equally dirty, how could you avoid it?
[Context] | Castro's Cuba, by John Corry | Harper's Magazine
Published in the April 1969 issue of Harper’s Magazine, “Castro’s Cuba” examines life in Cuba ten years after the overthrow of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Read the full article here. Subscribe to Harper’s Magazine for access to our entire 166-year archive. When Fidel spoke he got into it right away, stowing his gun belt in the lectern, and not wasting much time acknowledging the cheers.
[Readings] | Watched Words | Harper's Magazine
From Internet search terms blocked by the Chinese government since 2011. The terms were compiled and translated by the China Digital Times, a bilingual Chinese-media-tracking site based in California. old man messing around in politics Mao + beat the body of the dead I Was a Mayoral Aide in the U.S. relatives in the U.S. and Canada love of country is not the same as love of government You are currently viewing this article as a guest. If you are a subscriber, please sign in.
Mitterand’s Centenary
One can find much to deplore in the life of François Mitterand, whose centenary passed on October 26: his work for Marshal Pétain during World War II, his postwar loyalty to René Bousquet and other figures linked with Vichy France, and the famous attentat de l’Observatoire, the Observatory Avenue attack, in which Mitterand himself, for political profit, is believed to have orchestrated a fake attempt on his life.
Worse Chorus Worse
Years ago, I lived in Montana, a land of purple sunsets, clear streams, and snowflakes the size of silver dollars drifting through the cold air. There were no speed limits and you could legally drive drunk. My small apartment in Missoula had little privacy. In order to write, I rented an off-season fishing cabin on Rock Creek, a one-room place with a bed and a bureau. I lacked the budget for a desk.
[Postcard] | Trump's Party, by Joe Kloc | Harper's Magazine
Donald Trump held his election-night party at the Midtown Hilton, a forty-six-story slab of a building on the corner of 53rd Street and Avenue of the Americas. The Hilton’s ballroom is small by the standards of a political venue, and so the press had found it a curious choice of location. Earlier in the day, sources inside the Trump campaign explained to reporters that the candidate wanted to keep the party modest.
The Priest in the Trees
On the last Sunday in September 2015, the Reverend Stephen Blackmer stopped beside the stand of beech stumps where he had once performed the chain-saw Eucharist. He was leading a dozen or so members of the Church of the Woods on a contemplative walk. With his plaid shirt, decades-old custom Limmer hiking boots, and graying beard sans mustache, Blackmer didn’t look the part of a religious professional. He skipped nimbly over roots and rocks, turning around to laugh or make a point.
The Ultimate Terrorist Factory
In 1995, Kamel Daoudi, a twenty-one-year-old engineering student from the suburbs of Paris, moved out of his parents’ apartment. He had fought with his father, an Algerian immigrant obsessed with the possibility of his son’s success in France, his “acceptance by the system,” in Daoudi’s words. He resented his father and, determined to find a different path, took up the ideals of jihad.
Composting as Prayer
By early May the cover crops would be five feet tall. When the rye reached milk stage and the vetch and clover flowered purple and crimson, I would walk up and down the beds swinging a scythe, the stalks falling before me, the air growing redolent with grassy perfume, and then I would rake up the cuttings to make compost. First the green layer: fresh rye, vetch, and clover stalks. Then a brown layer: old hay or leaves.
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