doin' my thing! (a much more personal, less Charles Williams-y version of my Charles Williams piece): ...For a long time after my conversion I focused almost exclusively on accepting church teaching. But there is another struggle for acceptance, which for many gay Christians will be even more challenging: the struggle for self-acceptance.The self too is a gift from God. Your life, with all its weirdnesses and inexplicable longings, is a gift that it is your duty to receive with gratitude, … [Read more...]
“My story: Catholic, Lesbian, Celibate, & the Journey to Self-Acceptance”: I’m in the Deseret News
September 22, 2016 by
In the DC Area? Have Questions About Faith, Family, & LGBT Christians? Fond of Picnicking?
September 21, 2016 by
Come and picnic on Saturday, Oct 1, with Always God's Children, the ministry of St Matthew's Cathedral to gay and lesbian Catholics and our families and friends. I will be there & there will be others from a wide range of beliefs and personal situations. Basically if you'd like to meet people who will understand where your questions are coming from, and meet you with empathy no matter where you're at, consider picnicking with us.We'll meet outside the Rock Creek Park Nature Center at 1 … [Read more...]
Doomed Queen and Beaten Champion: Concert review, Tristen & the Mountain Goats
September 18, 2016 by
A few weeks ago I got a chance to see the Mountain Goats in concert. Let me tell you to do this thing if you get the chance. The Mt Goats is sort of one guy, John Darnielle, and the people he gets to help him make narrative, terrifically-structured indie music; I've yapped about their stuff here and here among other places. I super love them but am wary of live music for whatever dumb reason, so when I finally saw them at Calvin College, I was totally blown away. Darnielle was losing his voice … [Read more...]
“Escape from Detroit”: I watch “Don’t Breathe”
September 9, 2016 by
for AmCon, and end up ranting about the sacred Victim, obviously: Don’t Breathe, the new horror flick from director Fede Alvarez, opens with the flapping of wings and far-off sirens. Dawn is breaking on a deserted street, which we slowly approach from the sky. A man is dragging a blonde body through a city where everyone else seems to have vanished. more (also apparently I badly misremembered Wait Until Dark so apologies for that...) … [Read more...]
“Celibacy, Self-Acceptance, And the Extra Inkling”: I’m at First Things
September 6, 2016 by
readin': I’ve just finished Charles Williams's 1937 novel Descent into Hell, which was recommended to me by a couple of Catholic friends. Williams might be called “the extra Inkling.” Everybody knows J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, but far fewer people remember the other, less aggressively punctuated members of the club, including the philosopher Owen Barfield and Tolkien's son Christopher.Williams is the best-known of these auxiliary Inklings, and his writing is indeed what the youth of toda … [Read more...]
“Divine Disco: The beatific sub-genre that delivered sermons on the dance floor”: The Guardian
September 3, 2016 by
grauniading: With its reputation for sex, drugs and unbridled hedonism, disco doesn’t have a reputation as the most god-fearing genre. But, as every clubber knows, on a great night you can have something akin to a spiritual experience on the dancefloor, putting your hands in the air and giving yourself over to a higher power: music itself.A new compilation, put together by DJ and inveterate crate-digger Greg Belson, confirms that the cultures of Saturday night and Sunday morning aren’t so di … [Read more...]
By the Light of the Cross: Christian Wiman’s “My Bright Abyss”
August 25, 2016 by
What makes Jesus credible--at least for those of us who are Christians? The answers are as diverse as the wild array of weird Christian spiritualities. What stood out to me when I converted was the violence and public humiliation of the Crucifixion. The lurid, tabloid violence of Jesus' death seemed to me to meet, in some way, the reality of a brutal world. If there could be reconciliation it would need to be a horrific reconciliation; and so that's what we got.I didn't notice this at the … [Read more...]
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