I can’t sleep. That’s not unusual. I have bouts of insomnia throughout the year, and especially in the dark of January. Everything I do to mitigate it makes it worse, so I do nothing but wait for it to stop. I can’t pray. That’s the new usual. I used to practice my Ignatian meditations all night when it got like this. But ever since about 2021, I’ve been terrified that God can’t love me. He certainly doesn’t care about... Read more
The sun went down on the last day of the year, though we couldn’t see it. It’s a proper Northern Appalachian winter now, a mix of perpetual wet, snow and sleet and sloppy rain but rarely sun. There will be clouds above and slick muddy earth below for about two and a half months. Astronomically, the nights will get shorter bit by bit, gradually but inevitably. Meteorologically, it’ll be night until mid-March. Experientially, it will be night until the... Read more
The end of last year was so brutal, and the end of this one is so gentle. Christmas began with my thinking that I’d never drive my car again. Then the polar vortex set in, so dangerously cold for 48 hours that I couldn’t even sleep upstairs in my own house, so we dragged the mattress downstairs and slept in the living room. Then, out of money and ideas, I accepted an offer from someone I thought was a... Read more
I found myself shuddering with numinous joy, two days before Christmas, in an abandoned storefront in downtown Steubenville, staring at plastic a Nativity scene. I finally got to go to the Nutcracker Village and the Advent Market this weekend. Serendipity is up and running again, with a fresh coat of paint thanks to Jimmy and his boy. My veteran readers know that the Nutcracker Village is a favorite holiday tradition of mine. I’ve been excited to get a coffee at... Read more
It was the second-shortest day of the year, the day before the shortest day of all, the day before the light starts to come back. There was a knock at the door, which surprised me. Jimmy was coming to fix my car when he didn’t forget, but he was so busy with odd jobs around the neighborhood that he’d said he wouldn’t have time to help us for days. But there he was when Michael answered the door. The battered... Read more
I would like to draw your attention to an excellent investigative report in The Texas Monthly’s newest issue, written by Nate Blakeslee. This report fills in a lot of the gaps in a curious story about Bishop Olson of the Diocese of Fort Worth and his battle with a small community of Carmelite nuns. I wrote about these Carmelites earlier this year. As you recall, the Carmelites were suing bishop Olson because he’d barged into their monastery and taken their... Read more
You may have heard about the new declaration from the Discastery for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding blessing LGBTQ people. The declaration, entitled “Fiducia Supplicans,” permits ministers of the Church to bless same-sex couples and others in “irregular relationships,” as long as the blessing isn’t confused with a wedding. I’ll let Father Martin tell you all about it. This is the reversal of the previous rule, which was that blessings for such couples are forbidden because “God does not... Read more
You’ve no doubt heard about the two Roman Catholic women who were murdered at Holy Family Parish in Gaza, by Israel Defense Force snipers today. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem’s communication office issued the following statement: “Around noon today, December 2023 16, a sniper of the IDF murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family parish in Gaza, where the majority of Christian families have taken refuge since the start of the war. Nahdia and her daughter Samar were shot... Read more
It was all going beautifully, until it wasn’t. When has that ever not been the case? I was handling things well, making my crafts and listening to silly books, working on my various writing projects, keeping it together. I inched the car out to the grocery store, trying the experiment of never going over 19 miles per hour, which is the fastest it’s safe to drive through LaBelle with all the dogs and children playing near the one -way streets... Read more
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Notes Ahead of an Election Year
I don’t want it to be an election year, but it is anyway. In case you’ve just joined me, I became a writer and somehow got big-fish-in-a-small-pond notorious in an election year. When I got this blog in 2016, I was registered to vote but I don’t think I was registered as a member of any party. I had always voted for Republican presidential candidates before, on the vague idea that they were in favor of unborn babies, and... Read more