Issue 232 | The Sun Magazine

April 1995

Readers Write

Missing The Obvious

A battered wife, a troubled cousin, an intent reader

By Our Readers
Quotations

Sunbeams

Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.

Buddha

The Sun Interview

The Trouble With Religion

An Interview With Matthew Fox

If you teach people that the number-one problem is their sin and that when they came into the world they made a blotch on existence, they’ll never get over it. We talk about sexual abuse of children, but this is religious abuse.

By Rebecca McClen Novick & David Jay Brown
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Lamb Of God

Robert came to my church when he was in his early forties. He was a short, stocky, shiny-faced man with glittering glasses and mind. And he was HIV-positive. He joined the church because he was preparing to die and wanted to die reconciled with God.

By Jean Prema
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

The Contrary Farmer

The truth is that farming at its worst is no more physically punishing than operating a restaurant, brokering commodities on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, or training for the Olympics.

By Gene Logsdon
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

My Breasts, Adored

When I was younger I wanted Barbie-doll boobs: lavishly large and perpetually perky. Never mind that her breasts were two cold, lifeless knobs of hard plastic. They looked good.

By Barbara Kerley
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

The Battle

They were so angry that they decided to have a battle. So terrible was their anger that they would not wait, but declared that the fight must be fought now, immediately, on this very spot.

By Peter Blue Cloud
Fiction

Labels

Joshua used humor to keep people at arm’s length — which was funny in itself, because his arms were stunted from polio at an early age and now lay close to his body, twisted and next to useless.

By R. J. Olkin
Fiction

Batrender

From my perch twenty yards beneath the cave, I’ve a perfect vantage point to watch the bats emerge at twilight, streaming out of the mouth like musical notes from a horn.

By Devin Wallace