February goes on forever. It rains, and then it freezes, and then it rains again. The roads look impassable in the morning’s new snow, and then it melts off by midday but there’s nowhere to drive anyway. Nothing’s open. Nothing looks like fun. The state park is too muddy to hike in safely. The playgrounds are too wet to play in. The big box stores put all their Valentine chocolate on discount and are beginning to put out their... Read more
I took a neighbor to run her errands the other day. This neighbor is a young woman with little children; they were in the car with us we went up and downtown, checking off her to-do list. My neighbor doesn’t have a car right now, and her new apartment is far from the bus stop. She and the children acted like it was a fun adventure just to be riding in my messy dented Nissan. The neighbor loves her... Read more
Things have continued to be dreary and unlucky. A thaw came, rinsing gallons and gallons of melted snow into the gutters, and then it froze. The sidewalks are a dangerous maze of ice, pockmarked by jagged human footprints and speckled with sharp flecks of the most unpleasant kind of snow. The workman who fixed my furnace had promised to fix the upstairs toilet as well “after the storm,” but the snowstorm came and went and he never came back. For... Read more
Jesus came down with the Twelve and stood on a stretch of level ground with a great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are... Read more
February has never been a good month. My health has improved enough that I actually do sleep most nights and the depression is less. But it’s still dark. It’s still dreary. It’s still cold and frightening most of the time. It’s still the longest month experientially, despite being the shortest numerically. We can drive places in the Neighborhood Trolley this year so I’m not quite so stir crazy. But then again, there’s nowhere to drive to. All the parks... Read more
As we learned yesterday, the discourse on social media is about modesty again. Specifically, it’s some pastor telling women that they’re responsible for making their brothers sin by dressing in the wrong way. So I’d like to go over a few basic facts about what sin is, and who is responsible for whose sin. First of all, sin is a choice. Sin cannot not be a choice. If you had no choice, then you’re not guilty of a sin. If... Read more
The first time I was touched in a sexual way, I was eight. A loathsome boy named Wesley at the Catholic school liked to tease me that we were a couple. I despised him. I tried to avoid him, but there wasn’t anywhere to hide in the classroom. If I ran out of the classroom I’d be punished. One afternoon during arts and crafts, Wesley strolled by my desk and gave me a wet kiss on the cheek. The other... Read more
I played in my own backyard this weekend. This may not seem like much to you, but it was something to me. You may recall that at Christmas, my neighbor who has been making our lives hell for years threatened to “get back at Mary.” I found out later that she made good on her threat. We were served a summons for a restraining order. She wrote on the forms that Michael was stalking her through her yard in the... Read more
Sometimes I think in pictures and not words. Somedays I go for a walk and admire something beautiful, I can’t find any words of my own. Sometimes, I just remember the impression a piece of prose gave me without remembering the details exactly. That’s the headspace I’ve been in. There is a passage in the Silmarillion, which I’m too dumb to remember exactly, to the effect that whenever the devil sends bad things, God makes them beautiful. The enemy... Read more
A Reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah: In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above. They cried one to the other, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!” At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.... Read more
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