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Issue XI Wins “Best Issue”
On Friday, February 3rd, Vanderbilt Synesis was presented with the highest award in its class of journals, the Augustine Collective’s “Best Issue Award” for our summer 2022 issue, Work. The prize is awarded annually to one of twenty-nine journals at the Veritas Weekend Conference, in Boston, MA. The winner is chosen by the Augustine Collective,…
Letter From The Editor, Issue XII
Dear Reader, It is a signal privilege of the human race to enjoy aesthetics. Whether we see it in the orange hues of a clear sunrise, or hear it in the soaring voice of a splendorous soprano, or smell it in the scent of a fresh pie, we love beauty. Certainly, animals like dogs or…
Lasting Souvenirs: Observations on John Prine, his Power, and his People
Saturday nights in downtown Nashville typically invite bachelorette parties, post-game celebrations, and public intoxication – not meek and mild pilgrims. Marching towards the Country Music Association Theater, a band of concert-goers prepare themselves for an evening of revival and rejuvenation. The eager fans, all donning t-shirts of their favorite artist, converse with others in line…
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The Gospel Restoration of Fleeting Beauty
Embodying restoration, the Japanese art of Kintsugi reconnects broken pottery fragments with precious metal brushed in gold dust. Literally meaning “gold repair,” Kintsugi captures a philosophy of beautifying unavoidable imperfections, restoring purposeless cracks to an adorned state of beauty. Though many wrestle to define beauty [1], all humans have an innate inclination toward what we…
Beating Heart on an Ultrasound
a beating heart like a synchronized swimmer doing butterfly flapping flapping flapping flapping like typing four letters on a keyboard click click click click I see inside her inside him and find the whole world in an ultrasound probe
Bellyached Beauty
Beauty.Beauty is believing.Beauty is bowing down.Beauty is the weary-hearted.Beauty is abandonment to His presence.Beauty is blood poured from the Cross to our hearts today.Beauty is breaking through the hard walls of our flesh to yield to Him.Beauty bellyaches to the Lord, longing for His warmth in a cold Earth.Beauty builds our spirits up in the…
The Detour to Beauty
Henry David Thoreau was one of the most famous lovers of nature. Many of his works highlight his appreciation for the beauty of nature and the ways that it shapes his life and teaches him how to live. Thoreau said, “I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield…
Come and Behold: The Strength You Didn’t Know You Have
Growing up, I was fairly high-achieving and spent much of my time outside of class reading books and engaging in personal development throughout high school. Elected to various leadership roles and heavily involved in an international business organization called DECA, I was thrilled to receive coaching from top industry executives and global innovators. To me,…
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Formless and Void
God loves space and I, sitting on my couchfail to comprehend. Perhaps matter and grace strain to catch the imperceptible pace of divine thought ringing out in patter,‘In the beginning was the world, spatter and spume encompassed. And God was before it: a beginning without end.’ God loves space and made much of it.Is it distance, then, that…
Dr. William Edgar on Art, Faith, and Beauty
Dr. William Edgar is Emeritus Professor of Apologetics at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. A renowned writer, apologist, and Harvard trained musicologist and pianist, Dr. Edgar’s books include Reasons of the Heart and A Supreme Love: The Music of Jazz and the Hope of the Gospel. Our conversation ranged a wide gamut of important issues, from…
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3:01pm: Finding Grace and Beauty in Loss
At 7:31 pm on August 6th, 2021, I received a text that changed my life. At 3:01 pm on August 7th, 2021, my father passed away in a hospital over eight hundred miles from home. The nineteen hours between separating the two miraculously shined light on my darkest moment. This is the true story of…
Rooted Firmly
He knew her before He formed her, and she was beautiful [1]. A mother caresses her swollen belly and anticipates the coming day that her flower will enter into this world. Brushstrokes on birchwood, silver needle and sky-blue thread, the nursery is almost ready. Rosebud lips and golden tendrils of hair that shine as…