The question of modesty has come up again at Aleteia. In the ensuing discussion, a commenter asked me how someone with a propensity to scrupulosity can “err on the side of mercy” as the blogger recommended when it isn’t possible to know what might provoke a sexual response in some other person. Of course, I don’t believe modesty requires us to mindread, so this is my response: I argue strongly against a definition of modesty that requires trying to anticipate... Read more
The Stanford rapist, Brock Turner (and there you are, may those words accompany that name on Google for far, far longer than the measly 6-month sentence the man will serve), has promised to speak to youth about the dangers of “binge drinking and promiscuous sex.” His father begged for mercy in sentencing because digitally penetrating an unconscious woman behind a dumpster was just “20 minutes of action” out of 20 years of life, and also echoed the line about the dangers... Read more
If you want to look down your noses at people who rely on government assistance, I don’t want to be treated as exempt from your disdain simply because I don’t fit the image in your mind. I don’t want to answer your (rhetorical, I guess) question about why poor people do or don’t do something and then be told that you don’t mean people like me, you mean those other people. I don’t want to be excused because I come... Read more
Just popping in to point any readers I have left to my post over at The Personalist Project: News photographers know we have trouble seeing the humanity in victims of violence. It is all too easy to dehumanize the people we live alongside, let alone the dead we have never known. This is why we have the old trick of putting a child’s shoe or a teddy bear in the foreground of a picture of a war zone or scene... Read more
Dear Nasrin, You don’t know me–you live in the US, and I live in Canada–but we have a mutual friend. During a conversation today she mentioned that, since the attacks in Paris this past weekend, you have stopped wearing hijab. You are afraid of what people will think of you, afraid of what they might say, perhaps afraid of what they might do if you are visibly Muslim. Your husband is away, you are on your own with your children,... Read more
Bear with me, this post is geeky. I just finished watching The Zygon Inversion, last week’s episode of Doctor Who. Or rather, I just finished rewatching The Zygon Inversion, for the third time. The episode is the second half of a two-parter, but the first part–and much of the episode itself–is really just a setup to a very powerful piece of dialogue–monologue, really–about war. Except it’s not really about war as much as it is about forgiveness. Except it is... Read more
Last week was Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. It also marked the four year anniversary of my return to Canada after my marriage collapsed and sundry smaller betrayals left me with no other home to return to but that of my parents. Yet, I have many things to be thankful for. I am grateful for my family, and for everything they are to me and my children. I’ve learned to appreciate how blessed I am in being able to say... Read more
A snippet from a piece I published last week: …There are things broken that we cannot fix.Am I advocating despair? No. But these broken places in people’s lives are where Francis’s call for compassion and pastoral care is most relevant. For while it is true that we cannot heal one another’s every wound, nothing is beyond God. And while we wait for his action, we can and should follow his command by loving one another, even in the broken places.It... Read more
I’ve been thinking about the brokenness of the world all day, and about how nobody is guaranteed a smooth path. On Facebook, someone asked why it is that the world’s response to a double standard is to want to level the playing field by enabling the same vices or poor behaviour across the board instead of by holding everyone up to the same high standard. My answer was that the first option is easier. It’s easier–it is in our control–to lower ourselves to... Read more
Don’t miss this incredible interview with Stephen Colbert. I found this inspiring, in the midst of my own tangle of things-as-they-are and things-not-as-they-ought-to-be and children that need to be raised to find joy in it all. Not despite it all, but in it all: He was tracing an arc on the table with his fingers and speaking with such deliberation and care. “I was left alone a lot after Dad and the boys died…. And it was just me and Mom for... Read more
Peace and Pekoe
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