[UPDATE—Just after posting this, word came that I’ll Have Another will not race tomorrow due to a developing injury. There will be a press conference at 1pm Eastern time. Complicated, complicated . . . . Prayers for all.] “Around the turn and into the stretch . . .” According to family lore, that was the first coherent string of words I put together as I toddled around after my father, a man who played the ponies with a fervor so... Read more
One day Henny-penny was picking up corn in the cornyard when—whack!—something hit her upon the head. “Goodness gracious me!” said Henny-penny. “The sky’s a-going to fall; I must go and tell the king.” Henny-penny (aka Chicken Little) seems to have seized control of my Facebook news feed lately. From those ubiquitous (and universally bogus) posts warning of dire privacy breaches or other internetual urban legends to news stories that appear to imply The End of the Catholic World as... Read more
Be careful what you pray for. I thought I was going to have trouble finding blog material, but it’s arriving by the busload. In a spirited retort to the Vatican, a group of Roman Catholic nuns is planning a bus trip across nine states this month, stopping at homeless shelters, food pantries, schools and health care facilities run by nuns to highlight their work with the nation’s poor and disenfranchised. The bus tour is a response to ablistering critique of American... Read more
The day began with fire. I smelled smoke at 4 a.m. and walked outside to see billowing grey clouds reflecting two-story flames and full of lightning flashes, just half a block away. Burned power lines cracked like rifleshot. Sparks and pieces of burning roof tar paper sailed toward me on the wind. I swear I saw a bird on fire, furiously beating wings of flame. In the predawn darkness, I prayed a storm novena (9 consecutive seconds of very... Read more
Hi. I’m Joanne. Come on in. Pull up a packing crate, help yourself to the cheese and crackers, and I hope you don’t mind that the wine’s in coffee mugs, because I don’t quite remember which box the glasses are in. I’m still unpacking and hanging the new wallpaper, so please excuse the mess and make yourself comfortable. This is my first post from my new digs in the Patheos Catholic Channel neighborhood, and like anyone on moving day I’m excited... Read more
Stones in the road Leave a mark from whence they came A thousand points of light or shame Baby, I don’t know . . . ~ Mary Chapin Carpenter, “Stones in the Road” I’m thinking about stones today–particularly the stumbling stones in the road set down to trap and confuse us. The Greeks called a stumbling block or snare a skandalon, and it’s from that root that we get the word scandal. The road we travel as Church seems littered this... Read more
Waking up early on this Vigil of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, I caught a rerun of a Tavis Smiley interview with Anna Quindlen. I’ve never shared the enthusiasm for Quindlen that many women my age profess. Much less would I join Smiley in referring to her as one of America’s greatest living writers. I find her prose pedestrian at times, and shrill often–and I had those reactions even during the great span of my life in which... Read more
I’m trying to get past being a sad, angry old Catholic lady today. First there was CBS This Morning (which I’d recently switched to from TODAY, out of the blessed relief of finding a Kardashian-and-Kate-Gosselin-free zone with some actual news in it) getting the CDF inquiry into the LCWR’s positions and practices spectacularly wrong. Vatican Vs Nuns! was the title, promoted at every bump in the first hour, with Gayle King kicking it off by implying that if you thought... Read more
On every thirtieth day of May, being the anniversary of the death of the said most blessed daughter of God, there shall in every Catholic church to the end of time be celebrated a special office in commemoration of her; and it shall be lawful to dedicate a special chapel to her, and to place her image on its altar in every such church. And it shall be lawful and laudable for the faithful to kneel and address their prayers... Read more
Today President Obama awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to 13 people, three of them posthumously. On the list were a number of familiar names–Bob Dylan, Madeleine Albright, Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low, John Glenn. I was glad to see the inclusion of Dolores Huerta, whose efforts alongside Cesar Chavez in support of the rights of migrant farm workers I celebrated a couple of weeks ago. Among the less familiar (to me, anyway) names,... Read more
Egregious Twaddle
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