The Weekly Reading: Recent Episodes
Joseph JP Johnson
Featuring stories, poems, essays, scraps of theology, and other items published and unpublished by Joseph JP Johnson.
“The ambiguity of / ‘and the eyes of them both / were opened’ / leaves me questioning.”
“Maybe it was Milton or Caedmon who / first claimed the Tree of Knowledge held apples.” Originally published at the Purpled Nail.
In this Season 3 overview, Joe announces the new series of truly weekly readings, the format for these readings, and the upcoming In Beginning poetry collection. Featured music for the season: Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor, BWV 1011 IV., “Sarabande.”
Joe reappears to announce the publication of his short story collection and read one selection, “Hero,” a flash fiction piece. Transcript: “Hero: 3rd Street and Yakima” We stood at attention when the car drew close, and one of the nieces even saluted. I wondered who taught her that—if it was Maria. Someone said, “This is… Continue reading S2E13 Hero/Book Announcement
This final episode of Season 2 is a two-parter: Joe ponders the Pentecost Plague as an American Plague and then comments on two stories of moral authority. Transcript (“Pentecost” essay): I am, as anyone listening or reading knows, a Christian. That word can mean many things, and increasingly few of them are doctrinal. It may… Continue reading S2E12 Pentecost
Joe tries to remember the eruption of Mount St. Helens but isn’t sure he trusts memory. Transcript: Around 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 18, 1980, my world changed. There was no way of knowing or suspecting, so soon into the morning, the sky would turn black. Not black like the night. Not black like an… Continue reading S2E11 Volcanoes
Joe sees the world in the time after the apocalypse, in a world without funerals. Transcript: For at least two decades, I’ve had this end-of-the-world fantasy. I base it on Night of the Comet, a 1984 movie about two Valley Girl sisters who survive the annihilation of humanity. After the comet, they have free reign… Continue reading S2E10 Funerals
Joe considers neighbors, aspirations, and fear. He attempts to be inspirational. Transcript: On Saturday, my neighbor stopped me in the street. I was dumping compost from dinner, and he was wandering, a little stir crazy. My first feeling was that newly-gained dread: the terror of people: all of them are like zombies, carrying the plague… Continue reading S2E08 Talents
Joe is losing his mind, one memory at a time. Plus, he talks Augustine, Moby Dick, twenty-first birthdays, and Heaven. Transcript: For most of the Plague, I’ve been reading St. Augustine’s Confessions. It remains one of the glaring omissions in my study. For the first chapters, it was fascinating. I thought I would blaze through.… Continue reading S2E07 Memory
Joe marvels over the constancy of nature in a post-Easter essay. Transcript: Among the many controversies of the early Christian church was the date of Easter. In the first centuries, many Christians celebrated it on Passover. If Easter fell on a Wednesday, so be it. But a Pope began excommunicating those who followed this approach.… Continue reading S2E06 Constancy
Joe is done with Lent and the Plague. Instead, he wants to talk Passover and Robert Frost. Transcript: I had drafted a long essay on a strange dream I had about cats lurking in the bottom of a pond, like the ancient floating knights in Tolkien’s Dead Marshes. These cats, beneath leaves and in jade… Continue reading S2E05 Frost
Season 2 continues with Joe lamenting online church and considering the mailman’s war with porch pirates. Transcript: Yesterday, my wife said, “You are the only man I’ve seen in weeks. Other than the mailman.” We talked about how strange the mailman is—how he rings the bell and waits for one of us wave or shout—acknowledge… Continue reading S2E04 Mailman
In this episode, an actual third episode of Season 2, Joe writes about how he misses thinking that the world might end today. Transcript: American Christianity has always been eschatological. It has always viewed life with an expectation of an imminent end, where we are moments away from our personal finality or a step from… Continue reading S2E03 Apocalypse
In this episode, a surprise continuation of Season 2, Joe writes more about the wrongness of presence in the time of plague. Transcript: It is the first full Sunday of the Lenten-Plague. The churches, one by one, resolve to do their part in the collective self-quarantine, and with each notice of closures, I think two… Continue reading S202 Third Sunday of Lenten-Plague
In this episode, perhaps the only of Season 2, Joe ponders viruses, snow, aging, and the end of the world. Transcript: This morning, Friday, March 13, snow has come to Portland. This is how the world ends. Or begins. I’m not sure. This recording is not, really, a Weekly Reading. I’ve debated how to continue… Continue reading S201 The End of the World
“It is a Sunday night, and I, with my cat, am in my mother’s basement: a forty-seven-year-old man, who earlier that day delivered a sermon on Ecclesiastes to a congregation of Lutherans, surrounded by that tan masonite paneling, corresponding with a woman in Oregon on an online dating app, and thinking he ought to exercise,… Continue reading Loss (memoir): Ep46
“It was after the third attempt, the one with the pills, that Wallace really understood the business of suicide.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“I don’t think I’m going through a midlife crisis, that barrage of decisions and doubts that hit (according to movies and TV) men turning 40.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“They stand on stage like individually / wrapped, Halloween Kit-Kats and Hershey’s bars, / fun-size adults in rayon packaging.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
Tardy groundhogs / huddle on sidewalks / outside strip mall offices… Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“It didn’t matter that Pearl Jam, Radiohead, and the indie bands embraced the LP. Vinyl lost to the digital download and Mythic Records fell.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
Nostalgia, Netflix, and new movies. Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
Soldiers return to America and face home in this poem and companion flash fiction. Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
A split second in a high school basketball in a small town during the late 1980s hides a deeper history (and future). Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
In time for Emerald City Comicon, this essay recounts the first family Comicon in 2010 and a meeting with Stan Lee. Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
[/audio] Chapters 18 and 19 (previous readings in Episode 11): “The winter was cold and long. It was dark when you went to school and dark when you got home.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“The Cascade Mountains divide Washington and enforce peace between desert and forest, liberal and conservative, Cougar and Husky.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“John drew in the bathroom air, humid air laced with deodorant and soap. It was filling, cleansing.” “Persona or: All Sanctuaries Smell Like Stockholm” was originally published by Santa Clara Review. Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“She / nested in / an attic intake vent,” “Last night, I auditioned / seven pillows to play / the part of you.” “Nesting” was originally published by Heron Tree. Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“Miriam rubbed her thumb against the frame as if it held magic.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“Once upon a time there was a young girl named Elaina who lived with her family in a small town called Yakima.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“When January comes / the publication date drives / the currency of words / toward anthology or oblivion” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“Preaching is not about the act of creating ex nihilo—’out of nothing.’ It’s more like shaping what already exists.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“My first story, I was six, was about my cat, the cat I had until it contracted feline leukemia.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“Most theologians leave something unfinished…. In the truncated life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer the unfinished is the lingering question.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
Four poems on divorce and separation. Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
A memoir excerpt on the art of fathers and children learning to speak common languages. (From The World As Best I Can Remember It) Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“Harold worked up the resolve to mumble his final announcement: ‘Tomorrow, after Star Trek, I’m killing myself.'” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“It’s 5:30 and I check my phone. There’s nothing from Maria.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
Two chapters from a book on preaching (covering form, content, and story). Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
For Halloween: Reviews of Creature from the Black Lagoon, King Kong (2005), Psycho, and Willard. Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“He frequented these parties, his wife being an esteemed professor of Victorian literature—a woman whose publications on the advent of the English middle-class “tween” rocked the panels of three academic conferences.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“In the first year at the Yakima Herald I went to three funerals. The first was a beautiful Catholic homecoming for the Advertising Director’s wife.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com.
“The Cascade Mountains divide Washington and enforce peace between desert and forest, liberal and conservative, Cougar and Husky.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“I respect their art, their years of / gymnastics and dance classes” / “Fifth grade. David Polack called. / He had Playboys ” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“The car is cold and Cristina puts on her coat but she still shivers. If she were Maria, I might take her hand and rub it.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“I don’t think I’m going through a midlife crisis, that barrage of decisions and doubts that hit (at least according to movies and TV) men turning 40.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“H.R. Giger is a master of synthetic aesthetics, nothing less than the ability to understand and merge the beautiful and ugly aspects of creation.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“The rodeo will return this summer / and I will think about entering that world…” / “They remember the summer / of nineteen eighty-four” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
Chapters 1 and 2: “My name is Lance Sandersen, and I am the oldest of four kids, which means I will never get my own room. I share with my brother Gunner, who grinds his teeth at night, and the sound is awful.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For… Continue reading A Year in the Life of Lance Sandersen (children’s): Ep 11
“Tino pulled into the lot near one of the north-south arterials that flowed from the freeway. He set the parking brake, flipped the ignition, and glared at the familiar building.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
For Nelson K. Ng (d. Aug. 15, 2008) “It’s morbid, perhaps a little foolish, to think about dying. I’m in my early forties (operative word: early), and every year a new life expectancy report says I have decades, maybe centuries.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“This is a philosophical document. It is more about the philosophy of preaching than the act of preaching. That doesn’t mean the two aren’t related.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“August burns in the room, / but I am ice, / words firm, / precise, / clear, and cool.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“1. Until third grade when Ms Salonga gave me a poster / of Jaclyn Smith, one of Charlie’s Angels, I believed my mom— / brunette, tall, and five years younger than Kelly Garrett—” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
“My Grandparents, all four of them, are distant. My mom’s parents are decent people, but we never connected. My mom was the ‘other’ child….” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com
A young mother's experience of the first day of kindergarten is very different than her daughter's experience. (Theme music is "Holiday Gift" by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see www.kai-engel.com)
Appearing in July 2008, this essay on Gen-X and our need to have adult versions of childhood toys shows that little has changed in ten years. (Theme music is "Holiday Gift" by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see www.kai-engel.com)
First published in 2016, this poem reflects on the summer forest fires that ravaged the Pacific Northwest in 2015. In this first episode, I introduce the podcast with one of my most successful stories, winner of the 2012 Editor's Choice award from Carve Magazine. (Theme music is "Holiday Gift" by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see www.kai-engel.com)
In this first episode, I introduce the podcast with one of my most successful stories, winner of the 2012 Editor's Choice award from Carve Magazine. (Theme music is "Holiday Gift" by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see www.kai-engel.com)