Top Shortwise Reads of 2023
Three Pieces Chosen by Our Audience
Our three most-read stories for 2023 include a poem, a pointer, and a parable. Conveniently, those are the three kinds of writing that appear in Shortwise.
The contribution with the most reads is How Can God Bear It? In this poem, Theodore McDowell wonders how God can endure the zombie army of agonies sent marching daily toward heaven by addicts, homeless women, dying children, misguided lovers, and the rest of us. His sullen curiosity “carves time into fragments of eternity too big to swallow.”
The silver medal goes to a pointer by Gurpreet Dhariwal entitled What’s The Best Advice You Ever Gave To Someone? She describes her clever regimen of self-advice in opposition to a world filled with stupidity, cowardice, and pretentious noise. Her bottom line is that a retreat from God destroys focus and hope.
The parable Stop Accusing Me of Prejudice by Tom Byers took third place. A pair of tentacled aliens spar over how they feel about humans. The traditional husband justifies his opinions with hard facts, while the progressive wife tries to water down his feelings. She fails to realize how deeply his rotten attitude affects her own.
To see all of our top-ten stories, visit the Shortwise Archives. Choose the year 2023 and keep the default sort “by most read.”
My favorite among the remaining top ten is Writing: A Spiritual Practice, a pointer by Harley King. His poems have long spoken to the part of me seeking spiritual nourishment and creative sanity. It’s good to know he’s been healing himself along with his readers.
To see our latest offerings, please visit the Shortwise Cover Page. You’ll find wry poetry with a spiritual bent, essays with pointers to throw your troubles off-balance, and parables to keep your heart as sharp as your mind.
If you’d like to submit stories, first check out the guidelines. Also, read at least a few pieces among the several dozen submitted by our half-dozen authors. The shared thread is a whimsical element running through an otherwise seriously sacred topic. We only consider stories of three minutes or shorter.
May your peace be well-rooted, your pain be meaningful, and your self-importance be laughed upon kindly. Somewhere in those words may lie a resolution. The ball is about to drop.
Happy New Year!