Triptych

Faith is a container that holds a match: a puzzle, a flame, a fight. How do we make sense of God through human relationship? How do the layers of experience and theology interleave? How do the persons of the Trinity appear in the formative altars of our lives? With vivid imagery and a compelling lyric voice, Triptych grapples with the complications of the faith of incarnation and how their dimensions shift as we grow. Probing the implications of trinity, the memoir unfolds in three sections. "Fathers" wrestles through faith in childhood, trying to make sense of the lines of love and duty and how fathers represent a Father God. "Sons" chronicles blistered experiences of young adulthood: trying to find love and cope with sexuality when being faithful means a flame burns both human and divine. "Holy Ghosts" continues the stitching and colliding of human and divine relationships by confronting marriage and the Spirit as intimate, intervening, and intrusive.

April Vinding is an associate professor of English at Bethel University. She lives with her family in leafy, literary Minnesota.