I went downtown, to apply for utility assistance. The last time I called that department, they assured me that they do not take appointments anymore; they take walk-ins and walk-ins only. I wrote down their hours and all of the documentation they needed. Then I had one of my autoimmune attacks and didn’t go downtown for some time. Winter is a very expensive time. We did very well over Christmas and in January; I felt hopeful about getting through. February was... Read more
We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You, because by Your Holy Cross You have redeemed the world. Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him; and they began to come up to Him and say, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and to give Him slaps in the face. Pilate came out again and said to them, “Behold, I... Read more
Here’s an experiment for those of you who are over thirty. The rest of you, sit down and listen; you’ll learn about history. I want the over thirty crowd to cast your mind back to the bad old days. Way back. I’m talking about all the way back in the late 1990s, when the internet was brand new, referred to as “the information superhighway” and made marvelous squeaky fax machine sounds for five minutes every time you turned it on. We... Read more
How do you repent of your sins and ask forgiveness? Badly. Horribly. It’s par for the course. Repentance is turning away from the path you know, to take the path you don’t. You will necessarily look like a fool, and this is grace. How do you do your prostrations, at Forgiveness Vespers, in a Latinized church with pews in front of you? Badly, almost comically, making a fool of yourself, that’s how. You bow halfway. Or, you notice that the... Read more
I am a Benedictine monk, and I’ve been perplexed ever since I first heard of Rod Dreher’s proposal of a “Benedict Option.” (Dreher answers frequently asked questions about his “Benedict Option” here.) He turned to St. Benedict after reading Alasdair MacIntyre’s recommendation of the monastic saint. Dreher states: The ‘Benedict Option’ refers to Christians in the contemporary West who cease to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of American empire, and who therefore are... Read more
It begins tomorrow night– Wednesday for you in the West. Lent is beginning. Christ is going out into the desert. Why is He going into the desert? He is going to meet you there. You are a fallen creature in a fallen world. Heaven is your home, but you were not born in Heaven. You were born on the fallen earth. You’ve felt it all your life. You’ve known that it’s there. You ought to be in Heaven, but you’re not.... Read more
Anyone who’s read my blog before knows I’m not a fan of party politics. I’ve been particularly hard on Republicans because they’re the ones who claim to be the champions of Christianity while persecuting the poor and the migrant. I refer to 45 as the Tangerine Menace or Manitos Cheetos. I trust that I’ve earned enough street cred that I’m not going to be accused of being a Republican shill. Now, that said, I need to say something about Democrats. My... Read more
I don’t know anything about Milo Yiannopoulos. I’ve heard he’s a bully and he looks like a lounge lizard, but that’s all I know. My fellow Patheos bloggers can fill you in. So, if you were waiting with baited breath for my opinion on Milo, sorry, I don’t have one. I do have an opinion on something else, though. Yesterday, all of my friends were in uproar about a public conversation, about Milo Yiannopoulos, between Doctor Janet E. Smith and... Read more
This is what war is. Don’t skip that video. It’s less than a minute long. Watch the whole thing from beginning to end. Watch the part where they can hear the screaming but can’t find the little girl. Watch them tearing through the sand and rubble with their hands, trying to find her. Watch them knock pebbles out of her mouth when they get her face uncovered. See how she can’t move except to scream. Don’t look away. Don’t say anything about politics... Read more
Some nights I make meatloaf, and serve it with mashed potatoes. Last night I was too exhausted to stand up long enough to make meat loaf. I threw all the meat loaf ingredients, minus bread crumbs, into a skillet, browned them together with some frozen stir fry vegetables, named it “deconstructed meat loaf” and ate it on the sofa in front of my daughter’s X-Men video, which she’d been watching on and off all day. I remembered that Sunday was... Read more
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