December is the season of Advent in the Christian liturgical calendar, a four-week season of spiritual preparation for Christmas, as well as anticipation of the Second Coming and Last Judgment. (You won’t hear any songs about that in the mall–at least not in the liberal Northeast.) In Protestant churches, the lead-up to Christmas is also the
December Links Roundup: Femme Faces of Spirituality Read More »
This fall, our church had the honor of hosting the Rev. Elizabeth M. Edman, presenting her new book Queer Virtue: What LGBTQ People Know About Life and Love and How It Can Revitalize Christianity (Beacon Press, 2016). Edman is an Episcopal priest and political strategist and an out lesbian. She proposes that Christianity and queerness
Book Notes: Queer Virtue Read More »
When visiting a friend in Toronto last month, I had the pleasure of discovering Glad Day Bookshop, the world’s oldest LGBTQ bookstore. One of my purchases was this 1989 essay collection, Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique, edited by Joanne Carlson Brown and Carole R. Bohn. There are too few books devoted to reworking
Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: Cross Purposes Read More »
To my relief, this month the Young Master has moved on from conformist 1940s Little Golden Books to another genre of indoctrination more congenial to his Gen-X progressive parents. I’m talking about Dr. Seuss. Shane’s current favorite is The Lorax, a still-timely 1971 environmentalist cautionary tale about a greedy manufacturer, the Once-ler, who destroys a
Reading “The Lorax” in Lent Read More »
I celebrated Shrove Tuesday, a/k/a Mardi Gras, in traditional Episcopalian fashion yesterday with amazing chocolate chip pancakes at Miss Florence Diner. The waitress in this Valentine’s Day poem from Donal Mahoney would be right at home there. And in case you’re wondering, I still observe Lent, and this year I’m giving up self-doubt about my
Valentine’s Day “Special of the Day” Poetry by Donal Mahoney 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 »
I sing a song of the cats of God, Korat and Russian Blue; Who purred and pounced, and chased their tails, For the God who made them mew; And one was a tabby, and one Siamese, And one was an alley cat full of fleas– They were all of them saints of God, if you
A Song for All Saints’ Day Read More »
Happy Easter! As I mentioned earlier on the blog, I gave up doubting my intuition for Lent. That’s a practice I certainly hope to continue through Easter season and beyond. I often “give up” things that have a religious stamp of approval but are actually blocking me from hearing and trusting God. Lent was unusually
Easter Thoughts: God’s Joy and Ours Read More »
Inclusive Church is a UK-based resource for making the Church of England more welcoming and sensitive to diversity around sexuality, race, class, disability, and mental health. The latter topic caught my attention during my ongoing search for materials for a trauma survivors’ Christian study group. What’s great about Inclusive Church is that they see the
Survivor-Centric Liturgy: An Example from Inclusive Church (UK) Read More »
In Holy Week, which begins next weekend with Palm Sunday, Christians all over the world meditate on Jesus’s suffering and death. Catholics and some Episcopalians enact the liturgical drama of the Stations of the Cross, depicting the events leading up to the crucifixion. There are many ways to find ourselves in this story,
Lenten Reading: “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” Read More »