Are we sure God intended to make cockroaches and slugs? Ok, so I’ve long believed that cockroaches are a result of the Fall. But I actually think – thought – that slugs are kind of cool. Slug trails are fairy-like silvery things, and I respect any creature that manufactures it’s own slip n’ slide. But now, I am a gardener. And the tiny little size of my amateur little garden is all the more reason to grieve when any individual... Read more

I found this story very compelling. And only partly because I am nursing my baby boy now. Women step up to breast-feed motherless infant Charles Moses Martin Goodrich was born at 3:26 a.m. Jan. 11 at Marquette General Hospital. Eleven hours after giving birth, his mother Susan Goodrich, 46, died of amniotic fluid embolism – a rare obstetric emergency that is not age-related, Goodrich said. Moses is the Goodrich’s second child – Julia was born in 2007 – and Susan’s... Read more

on body/soul. Erin at Bearing Blog did some thinking about Christ’s humanity, about embodied-ness, and about being limited in understanding. Of particular interest to me, she gets there by meditating on the experience of having a panic attack: … How on earth can the omnipotent and omniscient and eternal “fear” his own willed temporal suffering? Fear comes from a lot of places — not knowing, for example. (But God knows all.) And being out of control. (But God is in... Read more

Some thought-provoking posts from other blogs. First, this from Dawn Eden: For Valenti, the idea that virginity even exists is “a lie.” She came to that realization after her first sexual experience at age 14 left her feeling unchanged, as she writes in Chapter 1: “I fail to see how anything that lasts less than five minutes can have such an indelible ethical impact.” (Now, there’s a proposition for moral theologians to consider: One could theoretically break all ten commandments... Read more

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I broke ground for my garden recently.Broke, in fact, an ancient concrete slabStrained to move the larger piecesrevealing clay and earth belowtight-packed with weight and years untouched. I kicked and shoved the shovel’s bladeto bite into the clay,levered up, foot by footto free the rich dark loamto find the home of earthworms digging low. Mixing in new soil from bagsand, turning to the hoeI hacked each clump, each lumpand clod of thick pale clayand earth, turning turning turning Hacking, pushing,pullingin... Read more

This is the question I asked on Facebook last night: “If someone’s personality changes significantly because of brain damage…which personality manifests in heaven? Is there personality in heaven?” Fortunately for me, the brilliant Therese numbers among my Facebook friends, and answered me thusly: oooh…. well here’s the Thomas Aquinas version of the answer: personality (likes/dislikes, tendencies, temperament) is a function of individual bodies (which makes a lot of sense, given what we know about the relationship between personality and brain... Read more

Forgive me if this is somewhat incoherent, I’m rather tired but want to get this out and up while it’s fresh. I’m really enjoying reading Oliver Sacks “An Anthropologist on Mars”, just as I enjoyed “Awakenings” when I read it a few years back, and for much the same reason. Sacks is such a respectful researcher – even as he delves into individual case studies seeking insight into brain chemistry, anatomy, and adaptability, he never loses sight of the individual,... Read more

This story is one that seems designed to touch your heart…and I can be somewhat cynical about such things (knowing how good these tv shows are at manipulating our emotions through clever editing etc.) but…but…but… …every time I watch the video or read about her or see her speak, I am choked up by the Cinderella story that is Susan Boyle. It is a satisfying story, and more satisfying for being a true one – about unrecognised talent, about subverted... Read more