What Is Shame Good For?
If you want to break a pattern, respond differently. Such a simple statement. I would call it deceptively simple, and by that I mean more easily said than done. In fact, I would contend that, although responding differently is essential,…
Open to Life
As I’ve written previously, I was raised Catholic and tried most of my life to get the right answers so I could be an outstanding one, but that wasn’t the end goal. The end goal was to get to heaven,…
Learning New Languages
After publishing last week’s post, I received an email from a reader, asking for clarification. I sent a response and would like to share and expand upon it here. I mean that the language we use—literally and figuratively—creates the world…
Origins and Ends
The golf lovers around here spent much of the weekend, when they weren’t out on one of the courses that just opened for the season, watching The Masters. Since they no longer have to put up with CBS Sports and…
Confession
After a Lifetime of Lies, It’s Time to Face the Truth I have been avoiding this post, but doing so is taking a physical toll, and I can’t put it off. A small, shivering wave of anxiety comes over me…
One Piece Leads to Another
Well, goodness knows, I’m tenacious. I certainly wouldn’t be here writing if I weren’t. On my kitchen table right now sits a 28 x 22” slab of foamcore board and on it is a partially complete jigsaw puzzle. I wanted…
Hold onto It with Both Hands
In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would have at once become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the labour question, it is before all things the…
White, Grey, Black
“I asked him what prayers. He said they prayed to Yezu Klisto and someone called Simon. Is that the same as Simon Peter?” “No, not quite the same. The fathers could tell you about Simon. He died in gaol nearly…
What Makes Us Whole?
“The central issue in this book is the conflict between the things we feel—the things our bodies register—and the things we think we ought to feel so as to comply with moral norms and standards we have internalized at a…
Maybe I Missed God
My kids and I always have theological discussions. I’ve been talking to them about God, faith, Catholicism, in one way or another, since each of them was born, and while I love babies and toddlers, I am happy to have…
Whitewashed Tombs
Last night, I returned to church, thinking that the first day of Lent would be a good time for it, but a funny thing happened. I became my father. Even funnier? It is nothing like I imagined it would be.…
The Humiliated Christ in Russia
Caryll Houselander was an interesting cat: quirky and Catholic, a bit of a mystic, a bit of a crazy cat lady without the cats. She was born in England in 1901 and died of breast cancer at the age of…
