The act of writing poetry, for Sofia Starnes, is a "getting out of the way" so that a poem might occur, a poem that must itself become a place of resonance, where the reader might recognize a voice otherwise unheard. The Consequence of Moonlight is a poetic invitation to an awareness of an underlying Presence; it is also a call to be present as a loving witness of valuable-and vulnerable-things. These poems are written to be depositories for the reader's experiences. The poem's truth is its emotion, nothing else. Why moonlight? Because the moon has no light of its own; it lives on borrowed light, as we do. The moon is best perceived and most needed in the dark, fulfilling itself in absence. It is both here and there, as is often true for saints, whose luminosity is seen as lunacy in the world.

The sacred ethos of the American Dream has become a central pillar of American civil religion. The belief that meaning is fashioned from some mixture of family, friends, a stable career, and financial security permeates American culture. Profane Parables examines three films that assault this venerated American myth. Fight Club (1999), American Beauty (1999), and About Schmidt (2002) indict the American Dream as a meaningless enterprise that is existentially, ethically, and aesthetically bankrupt. In their blistering critique of the hallowed wisdom of the American Dream, these films function like Jesus' parables. As narratives of disorientation, Jesus' parables upend conventional and cherished worldviews. Author Matthew Rindge illustrates the religious function of these films as parables of subversion that provoke rather than comfort and disturb rather than stabilize. Ultimately, Rindge considers how these parabolic films operate as sacred texts in their own right.