A couple of days ago, a writer at The Federalist went on a “just-kidding-but-not-really” rant about how the “friend zone” is dooming Western Civilisation and how it is all women’s fault for thinking men actually want female friendship in the first place. Unable to resist the opportunity to both rip down some idiocy and explore the nature of friendship, I spent the last day reading up and preparing a response, which is now up at The Personalist Project in two parts.... Read more
Fertility Awareness should be for every woman—not just sexually active ones I had a somewhat unusual sex education. Not unusual in most respects–I went to Ontario Catholic schools, which means that I had the same flush of embarrassment and curiosity over the diagrams in Chapter Four of our Fully Alive “family life” books as did my contemporaries. I remember sneaking glimpses at anatomical line drawings and shifting uncomfortably when it came time to separate boys and girls and talk about... Read more
I spent my morning on Facebook trying to communicate with a super-bitter, misogynistic geek guy with a chip on his shoulder the size of Rhode Island and talking points straight out of Elliot Rodger’s manifesto. I was going to write today about ADHD and messiness and the illusion of control in the goal of perfect efficiency and predictability, but instead I am brimming over with sadness for the kind of hurt, the smallness of heart and experience, that leads to the brittle... Read more
Flipping through Netflix recently, my kids and I wound up watching a handful of episodes of the slightly satirical show, “Barbie: Life in the Dream House.” One episode poked fun at how Barbie has had hundreds of careers over her history, but Ken’s primary role is as her boyfriend. She is both breadwinner and sexual ideal; Ken serves a purely ancillary role based on how helpful he is to her. The relationship is clearly unbalanced, and the show has some... Read more
When my oldest child was small, he would sometimes ask me what I was doing with my laptop as I paced around from one end of our tiny rental lot to the other trying to pick up a free WiFi signal from one of the nearby hot spots so that my blogreader would load up new posts. “She’s trying to talk to her imaginary friends,” my husband quipped once in answer to the question. The joke has stuck. Mama’s imaginary... Read more
We talk about living in a post-Christian era, but what does that actually look like? Does it look like the serene and peaceful world of John Lennon’s Imagine? Or does it look like the tumultuous and fractious rise of Donald Trump? A columnist from The Atlantic posits that the rise in populist rhetoric and increasing divisiveness in political discourse is due, not to division between a religious right and a secular left, but to increased secularization on all sides of the... Read more
I’ve been away this past week, and have subsequently neglected the blog. We spent three days in Toronto last week visiting friends, then spent half a day at my brother’s house on the way home, then drove to the Brockville Aquatarium to meet up with other friends the day after that. And it was wonderful and fun and crazy and exhausting. We visited the Ontario Science Centre and rode the subway, both of which my kids found about equally... Read more
Yesterday was my oldest son’s birthday, and it got me musing about the nature of time and the self, and how there is a continuity to the self from conception through into death (and, we Christians believe, into eternity). I look at my son, and because I have known him so well for so long, to my mind’s eye it sometimes seems like I can almost see him telescoped back in time, not like a series of still images... Read more
One of my favourite FB features is the “On This Day” app that lets you see your posts from the same day in years past. I particularly appreciate the reminders of days spent with my children when they were younger, and my hopes, anxieties, and impressions of the people they were and were becoming. Today is my oldest son’s 12th birthday, so my FB memories are naturally filled with pictures and posts from Guillame’s past birthdays. It struck me, reading... Read more
Prometheus . Into the window of time, new-opened, Adam’s hand, Prometheus-like, was singed condemned for stealing, spread-eagle on the deadened land – fire his chain, his bond, his plow, fire and Midas-like every tongue greed touch of red-gold spreads over eons and ages and sins of man. . So now we all, all are inflamed. Flaming shadows burn bright cold the night ravenously flickering icy breath belching forth nothingness and taking all in payment for Adam’s pecunious hand. Peccata Adam... Read more
Peace and Pekoe
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