Yesterdays I saw the news that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee will be putting certain steps in place to protect people from my trans brothers and sisters. Trans people are being hyped in many parts of the Church as a terrible threat for some reason. They’re the latest boogieman who is going to ruin our children. When I was very young it was “feminists” who were the enemy. Quickly after it became gay men “recruiting” children. Now it’s transgender people. ... Read more
Yesterday, I saw a movie poster circulating on Twitter. It was a promotional poster for a new Christian film from Germany, entitled 2o25: The World Enslaved by a Virus. The poster was already going viral by the time I saw it, but no one in the comments had yet watched the film, which apparently just came out this month. I was intrigued, because I have a lurid hobby of watching and reviewing films marketed to Evangelical Christians, so I... Read more
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John: There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now... Read more
Hi friends, this isn’t a real blog post, I’ll be on with one of those later today. This is just your every-several-week reminder that Steel Magnificat, and my family, run almost entirely on tips. I get some royalties from my books. I get a tiny paycheck from Patheos for clicks in the United States; that one is about seventy dollars a month lately. And the rest of my income comes from gratuities from readers who like what they’ve read. Blogging... Read more
It wasn’t all bad. I talk so much about how strange and terrible my childhood was, and I’m right. But you’ve got to understand it wasn’t all bad. There’s something wonderful about being buried under a pile of eccentric relatives who hold family reunions in the mountains. I will miss that togetherness for the rest of my life. Here I am in January, the darkest time of the year, homesick for city life in Columbus but also homesick for... Read more
I want to draw your attention to a beautifully written, heartbreaking and important article by Joyce Calvo, about the spiritual abuse and eventual suicide of her daughter, Alana Chen. I’m going to keep my remarks as brief as I can because I want you to read Calvo’s article and spend your time thinking about what she has to say. I just want to point out something I have seen in the reactions whenever there’s a new story about Alana... Read more
There was a girl at our church who had cancer. I don’t know why I’m thinking about this right now, twenty years later, in January, during a pandemic, while my own daughter shovels the walk. The dark of winter is a good time for telling stories, so maybe that’s it. I’m just telling stories. Yesterday I told you about the mudpuppy that taught me compassion, and now I’m going to tell you about a girl who had cancer. The... Read more
The day I rescued the mudpuppy was the day I became human. We cared a lot about humans, growing up, and we were told that the culture which surrounded us did not. We were devout, conservative Catholics who valued life from womb to tomb. The world around us did not value life. They valued pleasure and having a good time. They did not value babies, which were the ultimate measure of whether a person valued life. They took birth... Read more
It’s an anxious time. The New Year and the dead of winter are always anxious times. Every time of year is anxious for me, but these times in particular. We covered in my last blog post that I seem to be struggling with PTSD. I’ve also often suffered from anxiety and occasional bouts of obsessive-compulsive disorder, partly because of my undiagnosed poly-cystic ovary syndrome and partly because of my family’s time in a particularly toxic sect of the Charismatic... Read more
Christians are supposed to boast of our weakness. I am glad of that, because I am weak, and feel that I’m getting weaker. Christmas Eve was uneventful. I watched Christmas cartoons by myself because Rose is too grown-up for them now, and then we went to Midnight Mass. It was Rose’s first Midnight Mass, and my first since well before she was born. That was exciting. The bishop presided, standing at the altar between ridiculous white-light-festooned artificial pines, singing... Read more
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