This blog usually tackles (or is tackled by) serious subjects, so let’s start the year with a little humor. Over at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Sandra Newman’s list of “Woman Facts” satirizes gender roles and those clickbait lists of dubious scientific trivia. For instance: A woman is born with all the exclamation points she will use
January Links Roundup: Disobedient Woman Facts Read More »
Happy 2016! We’re hopeful that this will be the year of liberation for my prison pen pal “Conway” (Richard C. Jackson). He’s been waiting for a hearing on his early release petition since 2012, when California repealed the three-strikes sentencing law for nonviolent offenders. His case has just been picked up by Stanford Law School’s
New Poetry by Conway: “Lost in Translation” Read More »
Perry Brass is the author of several novels and nonfiction books on gay spirituality and sacred eros. As a Christmas gift to his newsletter list, he shared some of his recent poems, one of which he has kindly permitted me to reprint below. The boy in this poem could be the Christ Child or my
Poetry by Perry Brass: “The Child” Read More »
Becoming Church, an offshoot of the Church of the Saviour in Washington D.C., is an intentional Christian community devoted to racial and economic justice. Their major project at the moment is Reunion, a ministry that re-integrates formerly incarcerated people into civilian life, as well as doing activism for prison reform. I blogged about my inspiring
A Christmas Message from Becoming Church Read More »
What a year! 2015 was a time of transition, living out the implications of changes that began last year and gathering the courage to go public with them. Writing career milestones this year: My second full-length poetry collection, Bullies in Love, came out in March from Little Red Tree Publishing. Forbes Library in Northampton hosted
Reiter’s Block Year in Review: 2015 Read More »
I’ve been fortunate to have practiced Christianity in communities where sexism did not impact me–an unusual experience, I realize. Women priests, religion professors, and Bible study leaders were well-represented even when I was on the conservative side of the spectrum. Growing up in an all-female home, I felt completed and refreshed by the masculine Father-Son-Holy
Beyond God the Mother Read More »
On December 6, our family will participate in the annual Hot Chocolate Run/Walk for Safe Passage, the main fundraiser for Hampshire County’s domestic violence shelter and services provider. We hope you’ll feel moved to sponsor us here. Our community is unusually fortunate to have a domestic violence program that is trained to serve the LGBTQ
Support LGBT-Inclusive Domestic Violence Services in Massachusetts Read More »
Donal Mahoney, a loyal reader and occasional contributor to Reiter’s Block, returns with a thoughtful poem about holidays, privilege, and blind spots. Along those lines, while we retell the Thanksgiving legend of Native Americans welcoming white European refugees, some of our leaders and media outlets are stirring up fear and hatred against Middle Eastern refugees
Donal Mahoney: “At Bus Stops on Thanksgiving Day” Read More »
I just finished a philosophy book that I loved in 1999, and found it equally rewarding to re-read from a new perspective. Marxist-feminist philosopher Robin May Schott’s Cognition and Eros: A Critique of the Kantian Paradigm (Beacon Press, 1988) challenges the body-mind split that has constituted “objectivity” for the Western religious and intellectual tradition. I
November Links Roundup: It’s Supposed to Hurt Read More »
Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s widely-shared TED Talk “The danger of a single story” (transcript here) links narrative hegemony and prejudice. When you only see a limited range of images of a community or social group, both your self-understanding and your empathy become stunted: “show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over
Religion as Medicine, or Diversity Without Relativism Read More »