We couldn’t go to Mass on Sunday, not in the rain and snow. Serendipity is back in this neighborhood with her electrical problems fixed, for now– the Lost Girl’s uncle says she’ll need a wiring harness before long, but she can be driven for the time being, as soon as we get her some new brakes and patch that exhaust leak. It will take a bit to pay for that. So we stayed in. This is the second week... Read more
If you’re on social media, you may have noticed a graphic going around which lists some proposed restrictions to how the poor could spend their SNAP or “food stamp” benefits. At first I thought this was a proposed federal law, but it’s actually a regulation being discussed in the state of Iowa. Republican lawmakers in Iowa have proposed a new list of foods that Iowa’s SNAP recipients would no longer be able to buy, if the law passes. The first... Read more
The scrapper was in the alley, dragging a great big piece of iron. Holly the Witch was supposed to be taking a Zoom class, but she hadn’t been able to get in, so she was sitting around her house with nothing do, when she saw him. He had the bars from a metal bed frame over one shoulder, carrying them somewhere, not very fast. She went out. “Do you want my cans?” She washes out all her ginger ale cans... Read more
I haven’t seen the hawk since Sunday. I’d asked, for a joke, if I could put some beef jerky in a bird feeder to befriend the red-shouldered hawk and see him regularly. But it turns out that the real way to attract hawks is to put up a songbird feeder, and the hawks come to eat the songbirds. I didn’t like that much. The hawk was fascinating, but I love songbirds as well. They remind me of my grandfather. I... Read more
Here we go again, talking about my least favorite subject, the former priest Frank Pavone. As we all know, Frank was laicized by the Vatican for disobedience and “blasphemous communications on social media” late last year. He was still celebrating Mass and presenting himself as a priest for weeks after his laicization, but he’s claimed that is because he didn’t get the memo. Now, speaking to the Catholic News Agency, Pavone admits that that might be a fib. It’s the... Read more
I was on my daily Anxiety Walk, when I saw the hawk again. The Anxiety Walk is a regular feature in January. The lack of sunlight, color and things to do wreaks havoc with my mental health struggles. I have to drop what I’m doing and get away from the computer or I’ll go down a black hole, googling questions I already know the answer to for an hour at a time, trying to reassure myself but only terrorizing myself... Read more
John the Baptist knew Christ was the Lamb of God, because he saw the Spirit as a dove. I keep thinking about that this afternoon. It’s what’s keeping me from panic. Religious trauma looks different on different days. Being a recovering victim of spiritual abuse has may different faces. Today, it looked like being afraid of a Gospel reading. I read the Gospel readings, and I got scared. There is John the Baptist, testifying. “Behold the Lamb of God,... Read more
You might have seen that I ended up in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last weekend, talking about the Lost Girl‘s children and our trip to the museum. I was honored to be able to contribute. It’s no secret to anyone who reads this blog that I absolutely love the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. It was a dream come true to be able to write about the Carnegie Museums for a Pittsburgh newspaper. I love everything about Pittsburgh... Read more
January is an agnostic time. You’d be hard pressed to profess anything, in January, in the Ohio Valley, when the earth and sky are a uniform shade of gray-brown slush whether it snows or not. There’s been next to no snow so far. The weather is lukewarm, nauseating, too cool to have the windows open but too warm for the ground to freeze. The sun doesn’t shine in the few hours it’s up over the horizon at all. There is... Read more
Yesterday, my social media was flooded with a barrage of outrage over an outfit called Exodus 90. What is Exodus 90? As far as I can tell, Exodus 90 is the kind of thing I would have thought was cool back when I went to Franciscan University. It’s an app you can download to your phone for a fee, which guides you through 90 days of prayer and asceticism. There are requirements for what not to eat and drink,... Read more
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