Good Moaning. It is gray and spitting rain here in fair Bing. We’ve done up a podcast about the phenomena of being in pain–both culturally and individually–and how you should handle the pain of your children, and the pain of other people, and even your own pain. We also wonder about the origin of Friday the 13th being scary, and we wind up with a special reading from the Passion Bible. We have a good time, so I’m sure you... Read more
I was recently arrested by the line that is so often repeated through the gospels, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” This morning you can hear it read in church, if you go to an Anglican one, but I had it reverberate through my mind a few weeks ago, in the days surrounding all the news about Jeffrey Epstein. Mr. Epstein was in jail awaiting trial, there had been that first “suicide attempt,” and in Bible Study, Matt... Read more
One Discovered just now, by scrolling through the internet, that today is a trifecta of scariness. It is a Friday.* It is the 13th of the month. And it is a full moon. Line up your freak-out gifs!!! And right on cue, as of first importance, I have been delivered a long screed against Christians having anything to do with Halloween. It’s going to be epic this year. I am gathering entries for our annual extra-super-special Halloween Podcast, so send them... Read more
Me trying to read literally anything. And boy does she have a lot of teeth. Well, this is an absolutely brilliant book review. I clicked on it because I’m halfway through The Innocent Anthropologist Abroad, which I stole from my parents a while ago, but then left sitting next to my bed in that guilty pile-up of books you plan to have read yesterday. Nigel Barley, on the book cover, is said to do “for anthropology what Gerald Durrell did... Read more
I woke up to see Remember 9/11 trending on Twitter and was sure I had said something about it some years ago, and sure enough, I had. And really, what I said here, I think more than ever. I feel that I was practically prophetic. So, because I am sure you don’t remember at all, here it is again–just like all remembering, the first step is to repeat over to yourself what you said and thought and felt, going constantly... Read more
Here is something depressing to mull over for the week. A psychologist of one kind or another has coined the term Religious Trauma Syndrome. In an interview, she explains: Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is a set of symptoms and characteristics that tend to go together and which are related to harmful experiences with religion. They are the result of two things: immersion in a controlling religion and the secondary impact of leaving a religious group. The RTS label provides a... Read more
Awfully late posting today on account of one of those horrid annual doctor visits that, in their ritual regularity, leave one shattered and unhappy about being alive. Anway, we did do a podcast about how conflict and division works itself out in the church, and why Jesus would want you to go directly to the person you’re upset with, even though you are sure he would never want you to actually do that. I feel like it’s a good one,... Read more
Everything He tweeted would have this as it’s background. I just discovered “Hashtag Sunday Thoughts” on Twitter and I’m having a bit of a hard time tearing myself away. It didn’t occur to me that, just like all the other days, a curious cross-section of humanity would tag their thoughts by this particular day also and that I would be able to find and judge them. Lest this discovery of mine cause you anxiety, let me hasten to say that... Read more
Goodness, what a week, and I still haven’t even started school. One On Wednesday morning I toddled off to the Dentist, as I am always doing now, having something like 8 or 10 cavities. They can only be filled one at a time because after about 15 minutes I start to gag and throw up on myself and others. This time, as the office assistant invited me to sit in the shabby green chair and prepared to put the pink,... Read more
We all know that books can be bought not for reading, but for decorative purposes, and I know that you—as I–have been anxiously awaiting to find out what kind of books Gwyneth Paltrow would have for her multimillion-dollar, ethically sourced, ecologically sustainable wellness dwelling (“house”). Finally, the good news is here! Gwyneth remodeled her L.A. home a few years ago and when she moved in she realized she needed about five or six hundred more books to complete her shelves.... Read more
Preventing Grace
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