I’ve been exhausted lately. My seasonal depression and anxiety are the lowest they’ve ever been in a February, but it’s still February. I still can’t get to sleep before three or perhaps five, and I still don’t have much energy or creativity. Due to climate change or the El Nino or something or other, there’s been no snow since my trip to the waterfall. I liked the snow better than the irritating gray void. Snow makes things look clean. I’ve... Read more
Hi folks, There’ll be a real post worth your time up before long. This is just my monthly post with all my notes about what I’m doing when I’m not on Patheos. First of all, I was honored to be at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette again this month, writing about politics. I would love it if everyone could read and share that and talk about how I’m the best political commentator since sliced bread became a political commentator, because it... Read more
I hope it’s not a surprise to you that Jesus is Jewish. Over the weekend, as I’ve already mentioned, I met a couple of nasty Traditionalist Catholic internet trolls. I didn’t mention before that one of them was a pretty severe antisemite, and in the course of insulting me for being middle-aged he also was spouting crass antisemitic conspiracy theories. He even claimed that in doing so, He was defending the honor of Jesus and His mom. It made me... Read more
Over the weekend I tussled with a Catholic traditionalist troll. This happened on Twitter/X, of course. I have the app open all day while I’m writing in a tab, which is how I got famous for constantly doomscrolling there. He was male, the kind of traditionalist troll who says “based” all the time. I think he was originally offended because I said that exorcists are con artists, and after what I’ve been through I don’t apologize for that belief.... Read more
This time, I KNOW what’s wrong with Serendipity. My long suffering Nissan started limping again when I ran over one of the locally famous potholes at the Walmart. Pulling into a parking lot and turning her off and on again several times fixed it; I drove all around town to see what would happen and the problem didn’t recur. I almost decided to pretend it had never happened, but on second thought I drove her to the parts store... Read more
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark: On leaving the synagogue Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her. He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them. When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered... Read more
They are performing baptisms, or ceremonies that look like them, at the “Take Our Border Back” convoy rally down in Texas. The videos came across my social media: a white woman in a red T-shirt with an American flag printed on it, sits in a shiny new horse trough holding her nose. A man I presume is a minister in a black cowboy hat mutters a prayer over her while another man shouts invocations loudly; she gets dunked, and comes... Read more
[Note: a version of this piece first appeared in 2018, but the links to Page Two in many of my old two-page posts are broken now so I’m revising them and re-publishing them as new one-page posts.] I shared my first meditation on the Seven Last Words of Christ. For those of you who don’t know, the Seven Last Words of Christ is a devotion also known as the Seven Last Words From the Cross, the Seven Last Sayings of... Read more
They’ve been talking about married priests on X/Twitter lately. A Vatican official brought up ending the usual requirement for priestly celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church as a possible way to help priests not feel the need to live “double live.” He didn’t draw any links between celibacy and sexual abuse, but since he also investigates clerical abuse he mentioned how it’s changed his point of view. And people got to talking. The question was asked, as I’ve often heard... Read more
I woke up to find that the Right Wing has views on Taylor Swift again. They were melting down over Taylor Swift over the weekend, because she looked so happy hugging her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, after that football game I didn’t watch. I didn’t even know there was a football game going on until I saw people freaking out about how it ended and about Taylor rejoicing with Travis on the field. Since then, things have devolved into an absolute... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In