Dear Thoughtful Pastor: Religion has a very unifying effect on its followers. Is it even possible to separate religion and politics (that govern our everyday lives)? The Bible is used to justify every conceivable political position. But let’s assume one can separate the two. What is the mental process to do that? If I can use some passage from the Bible to convince my friends to vote the way I want them to, how do I separate those two actions,... Read more
Dear Thoughtful Pastor: The Bible says to turn the other cheek when I am affronted. How do such words apply in a world full of radicalism, threats, rampant murders, bigotry and hate? How many physical and mental assaults must a person or a group absorb before earning the right to ask this: Are you kidding me? Is the Bible–the book I grew up depending on–really that out of touch with reality? Are its followers so very obliged to stand down... Read more
Dear Thoughtful Pastor: I’ve been married nearly 16 years. My husband is a great guy in so many ways but this last six months have become difficult. He has always been passive aggressive but I can feel it getting worse. I don’t know whether I have changed (I have been questioning our religious beliefs a lot recently) and I have become less tolerant of it or whether the behaviour has actually increased. I’m finding myself more and more upset and... Read more
Saturday was Sicily. We wandered in the small villages that Francis Ford Coppola inadvertently made famous by filming parts of The Godfather movie series in them. We were making our way to a church where one of the scenes was filmed. Along the way, we saw this arch. The guide told us that we now looked upon the remains of the Jewish synagogue. Before the 14th century, there was a thriving Jewish component to the village life here. And then,... Read more
My husband and I are currently in Europe. I was seriously hoping to be away from all political talk during these weeks away, but it cannot happen. The 2005 audio of the Despicable Donald crowing about his ability to molest any woman he wanted has made clear what most of us have known for far too long: women are nothing but sexual objects to him. That is their only purpose in life. A man we met on the ship–a former... Read more
Luxury cruising: finding our bed strewn with rose petals and towel swans along with a bottle of champagne waiting for us as a way to honor our anniversary. Luxury cruising: having the head chef come our table and say, “I’ve finally found you–you are not taking advantage of ordering anything you want ahead of time. We will make any dish you want to comply with your gluten-free needs.” Apparently, I am the only person on board with this issue (or... Read more
Dear Thoughtful Pastor: What do you do if you know a person is going to do something bad but has not executed it. Is there any way to stop them? You have no hard evidence of their actions but you know the person well enough to be pretty sure that there’s going to be a terrible outcome. The short answer to “is there any way to stop them is “no.” But if we really want a “yes” here, let’s look... Read more
My life has not turned out in any way that I expected when I decided to take early retirement. I had sensed strongly (and with significant pain for a lot of reasons) that God’s call upon my life had shifted its emphasis. I’ve always known there was a dual call: both to the pastorate and to the writing life. The time had come to concentrate on that writing life. I’ve always known there was a dual call: both to the... Read more
How do leading republicans feel about women? Try this one on for size: During the debate, GOP pollster Frank Luntz shared a text that he said he’d received from a Republican member of Congress saying Clinton “just comes across as my [b—–] wife/mother.” Totally aside from the fact that defining Clinton’s collected, occasionally funny, performance in a debate where she was constantly interrupted and lied about as shrill or unpleasant suggests that there is literally nothing a woman can do that won’t... Read more
First, this article sums it all up: The world is still almost irredeemably sexist. Anything Hillary has done, or even has been accused of doing, would have been celebrated or ignored if she had been male. It’s time to stop pretending that this is about substance. This is about an eagerness to believe that a woman who seeks power will say or do anything to get it. This is about a Lady MacBeth stereotype that, frankly, should never have existed in... Read more
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