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 »
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 »
For a one-sentence statement of my personal philosophy, the Serenity Prayer can’t be beat: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” (Closely followed by Kenny Rogers’s “The Gambler” chorus: “You got to know when to
October Links Roundup: Spiritual Bypass Edition Read More »
I keep having to come out on this blog. As a gay-affirming Christian, as an abuse survivor, and now as something I don’t have a name for. “Spiritual but not religious” doesn’t fit. I’m finding God in more traditions, even as I loosen my identification with a single one. Christianity remains important to me as
“I feel like someone just gave me some very good news!” The online literary journal Wag’s Revue launched in 2009 with a manifesto promising to “marry…the editorial rigors of print to the freedoms of the Internet.” Over the next six and a half years, Wag’s published innovative poetry, fiction, essays, and interviews. Each issue also
Wag’s Revue Goes Out with a Bang (and Four Poems by Me) Read More »
An artist friend sent me this hilarious and spot-on list of things you need to understand about writers, by her friend’s 14-year-old daughter, Maggie Marsden-Sparrow. She is an aspiring author who shares her work in online forums for youth. Maggie and her mother have kindly given me permission to reprint it here. She’s certainly got
Guidelines for Writer Care: Teen Writer Maggie Marsden-Sparrow Explains It All Read More »
Understanding PTSD as a variety of neurodiversity has helped me feel less isolated and medicalized by the “survivor” label. I’m grateful to discover the work of disability activists and theorists who are radically re-imagining a world without rigid norms for how everyone should think and feel. My recent drift away from organized religion owes at
August Links Roundup: Content Warnings and Disability Activism Read More »
I met prison librarian and youth advocate Jane Guttman 10 years ago when she invited me to teach a poetry workshop at the Juvenile Court School in San Bernardino, CA. Before then, I’d never had personal contact with prisoners. I unconsciously accepted the myths and fears that popular culture promotes about people who wind up
Juvenile-In-Justice Gives At-Risk Youth a Platform to Tell Their Stories Read More »