Welcome to Bendable Light (Where David Rodeback Writes). If you want writing on a particular topic, the home page is a good place to start. If you simply want whatever’s new (or nearly new), regardless of topic, this blog view is the place.
- “Sacrifice the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving”
Thoughts on a phrase from Psalm 107: “sacrifice the sacrifice of Thanksgiving.” What might my sacrifice be? - Writing What I Believe, Writing What I Love (Part 3)
The writerly thrills I chase are quotidian. It’s fine with me if others fill their books with the magic of wizards, castles, and all things speculative and paranormal. For my part, I want to tease the magic – and light and darkness – out of ordinary moments. - Writing What I Believe, Writing What I Love (Part 2)
This may sound shallow or Pollyannish. But lately I am drawn more to questions of how we live together in families, neighborhoods, and communities – including religious communities – and less to similar queries on a larger scale. We navigate these things throughout our lives, but with special intensity during adolescence, so perhaps it makes sense to write of youth. - Writing What I Believe, Writing What I Love
I want to enjoy a novel in all the usual ways – laughing, savoring the building suspense, shedding the occasional manly tear. But I especially want to think. I want to think new thoughts and test and rearrange old ones. I want to see and understand the world, myself, and other people in new and unexpected ways. I want to finish the book with a sense that there are still things for me to learn from it, by pondering it or even reading it again. I want a book with a heart and a mind. - He Was Something: A Tribute
I went to a man’s funeral this week. He died shortly after his 94th birthday. Was he a man-out-of time? Are we a time out of men? - My New Year’s Bookbuying Resolution — Join Me!
A new Barnes and Noble bookstore coming to American Fork prompts a bookbuying resolution for the new year. - That Teetering Stack of Books I Read in 2022 and 2023 (ish)
In which David Rodeback chats about 33 books he’s read in the past two years, give or take, and lists a few more. Fiction, non-fiction, and non-fiction about writing. - “A Light to Lighten the Gentiles”: Christmas Reflections
Christmas reflections on the Light, the Life, the Truth, the Way — and why I think even secular Christmas celebrations can have some sacred effects. - Come As You Are: Reflections on Reunion
This is a reprint of a blog post from 2013, which in turn was based on something I said at… - Ten Ways to Celebrate Easter (Alone or Together)
Christmas looms large on the Christian calendar, but I’ve long thought that Easter should loom larger. There is no greater cause for celebration in all of earthly Christianity than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So let’s celebrate Easter! - Christmas Reminds Me
By nature reminders are not new thoughts, but Christmas reminds me of important things, I think. - There Might Be Another Way (a short story)
After a sleepless night and a distracted morning at church, an impromptu lunch date may be Pia’s last chance to tell Doug how she feels. - Books I Read Lately – Winter 2022 Edition (in September)
When I finish reading a book, I stack it on a certain shelf near my desk in my home office,… - Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, My Two Favorite Authors, and Mother’s DayMy two favorite authors, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vasily Grossman, treasured Raphael’s Sistine Madonna from different perspectives. What that has to do with Mother’s Day …
- Radiant Moments: A Thanksgiving Reflection
I began this Thanksgiving morning by setting myself a task: to describe my gratitude for specific things which are not…
From the Author
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And if you’re interested in my published fiction, which mostly isn’t about politics, check out my two published collections at 60 East Press.
