Alisa Ruddell is a homeschooling mother of four who lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, Steve. She loves classic literature, reading aloud to her children on the couch, and listening to theology and science podcasts while going about her household chores. Writing helps her to weave together the threads of meaning she finds in her reading, watching, and listening.  She has previously published at Salt and Iron.

The Spy Film That’s Better Than Bond, or, Why I Watched Tenet Four Times

This reciprocal, mutual mentoring is possible only because of time inversion, proving that Tenet’s sci-fi premise is no mere gimmick. The story’s moral core depends on it. 

Raised by Wolves: The Temptation and Trauma of an Android Eve

Raised by Wolves shows us a world where the tools we’ve fashioned (AI) are placed in the position of fashioning us.

How Not to Die: Listening to Trees as Old as Jesus

In both the Word and the world—in spirit and in body—trees sustain us with a grace we don’t deserve.

Ray LaMontagne’s Imagination: A Timely Salve in a Troubled Season

Music like Ray LaMontagne’s can play a part in tuning our hearts to this holy grammar all around us.

Sex and the City of God by Carolyn Weber, Free for CAPC Members

In Sex and the City of God, Carolyn Weber shows us the merciful (yet painful) process of Christ re-ordering her loves and directing her paths.

Will Ferrell’s Eurovision Tribute: How to Save the World by Laughing at Yourself

The Story of Fire Saga shows us how to mature past win-lose games into a form of infinite play that values process and relationships over victory.

It’s a Festival, Not a Machine: Celebrating The Symbolic World

Jonathan Pageau’s channel, The Symbolic World, provides a means for the baptism of the evangelical imagination into this symbolic life.

Humor and Humility in the Music of Father John Misty

No matter his graphic language, depression-stoked benders, and religious satire, Father John Misty still orbits Christianity with a gravity he can’t escape.

Ashes to Ashes, Stardust to Stardust: Watching Sunshine during a Pandemic

A good story doesn’t make you feel more afraid than you were before; a good story helps you see the best way to act in the midst of your anxious fear, providing you with hope.

Why Truth-Loving Christians Still Have a B.S. Problem (and What We Can Do about It)

We need to learn how to cut through the B.S. and un-deceive ourselves daily to gain a clearer vision of both God and the world.

Transcending Evolution: Love and Death in Spring

Spring suggests that to be truly human is to love in a manner that transcends any evolutionary roots.

Finding God in Godless

Godless treats the subject of God’s absence not in propositional statements, but rather the embodied, existential answer of lives well-lived.