The Sistine Chapel's Excess of Meaning
The digital realm is fragile; it hovers like a delicate film over the stubborn, raw physicality of our material existence. This fact is...
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Essays
Desire in Search of an Object: Spectacle and Longing in the Art of Paul Pfeiffer
With a deft hand and skillful use of digital technology, Paul Pfeiffer transforms ordinary sports and entertainment footage into...
Life Finally Caught Up to Science Fiction
Each day we hear about new ways AI technology can improve the way we do education, business, industry, health care, and communication. It...
A Book of Marvels
Given our enchantment with the endless stream of innovations and immersive experiences offered up by the culture industry, any of us...
The All-Knowing Cloud and the Cloud of Unknowing
As a young adult I enrolled in an introductory astronomy course. I worried that it would require a lot of advanced math, but the...
Geghard Monastery: A Sanctuary of Divine Serenity
The story of how Christianity first became a national religion is both enigmatic and strange. History tells of a runaway virgin,...
An Image of Faith?
When I was growing up, I thought of faith and belief as synonymous. I never had the difference explained to me by a respected authority,...
Do You Know the "Other" Statue of David?
The figure of David of Sassoun looms large in the Armenian imagination. In Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, the statue in honor of this hero...
The Arts as Resistance: Armenia's Men of Bronze
Well before I ever stepped foot on the soil of my ancestral homeland, I was aware of the vital role the arts played in the life of...
Why We Need William Blake
The notion of the artist as prophet is a familiar motif. Once you recognize art’s spiritual dimension, it’s easy to see how both artists...
Air Jordan: Relic of Desire
This essay, published in Christ and Popular Culture, is a companion piece to my recent essay on the same subject. Here, I continue and...
The Air Jordan: Legacy of a Popular Relic
This essay, appearing in Mockingbird, was inspired by the movie "Air". In it, I discuss how consumer culture shapes our identities and...
Sacred Artifacts in the Era of the Digitalized Family
This essay, appearing in Genealogies of Modernity, serves as a companion piece to my earlier work, "The Aura of Our Mechanical Arts",...
The Spectacle of Self-Improvement
In this essay, appearing in Transpositions, I explore the profound influence of aesthetics and social media in the commercialization of...
The Aura of Our Mechanical Arts
Appearing in Ekstasis Magazine, this essay explores the intersection of photography, technology, and spirituality through the lens of...
Symbols of Excess: Ozark and the Idolatry of Our Times
In this essay, which appears in Pop Culture and Theology, I examine the symbolism of the title cards in the the Netflix series Ozark as a...
Emulating Divine Creation: Philip Guston's Third Act
Philip Guston painted The Line (1978) late in life. It was eight years after he first exhibited figurative works that broke with his...
The Readymade as Social Exchange: Everyday Tactics of Resistance in Conceptual Art
Ever since Marcel Duchamp introduced the readymade, the mass-produced object has played a key role in modern and contemporary art. As...
Hovering Over the Waters
Grace has the character of an intimate flow that wells up gently, filling our broken places and bringing us closer to God. But,...
Justice and the American Way
In this essay published in Radix Magazine, I discuss Biblical justice and how it applies to the current social and political context in...
Truly
It’s often been said that art reveals truth, though the question of how, or even what we mean by “truth” isn’t obvious. Antonio Palomino...
Wonderment
In the early part of our journey, we lean on the church’s authority. With our feet rooted firmly in belief, we must develop a healthy ego...
Armenia's Cross: A Cosmic Tree of Life
This essay was first published in The St. Austin Review. The khachkar, or cross-stone, is unique to Armenia, the first nation to adopt...
The Comic Saul
Caravaggio’s painting The Conversion on the Way to Damascus is a visual allegory for the figure of the holy fool, who surrenders to God...
Setting Sail for Truth
In this essay, published in Genealogies of Modernity, I explore the themes of truth and humility through Alfred Stieglitz's iconic...
The Place of Unknowing
In this essay I write about Caspar David Friedrich's Monk by the Sea as a visual embodiment of the apophatic tradition. The piece,...
Ghosts in Los Angeles
This essay, which appears in Ekstasis Magazine, examines photographs of the homeless made by the contemporary artist Andres Serrano. I...
The Shape of Personality
In an essay inspired by writing from C.S. Lewis, I explore the representation of personality in our visual culture. This piece, available...
Reimagining Paradise and Compassion
When we speak of compassion we think of human relationships. But the Cosmic Christ includes compassion for all of creation. In this...
Resurrection and the Everlasting Image
On the occasion of Eastertide, I felt compelled to draw together the story of the famous Armenian painter Arshile Gorky and the Christian...
Portraits of the True Self
I have always had a love for the paintings of Rembrandt and find the complexity of his career-long engagement with the genre of...
A Pronounced Feeling for the Inner Life
In this essay, published in Ekstasis Magazine, I reflect on the impact of the pandemic on outer and inner rhythm and the stay-at-home...
Birth Through the Virgin and Child
Writers were invited by Contemplative Light to reflect on the occasion of Christmas. In this essay I take a look at the difference...
Ecstasy in Stone: Viewing Bernini through a Contemplative Lens
For my first essay to be featured in Contemplative Light, I explore Bernini's "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa" from a contemplative...
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