Posts Tagged ‘God’
Imitating the Saints
April 7, 2016
St. Therese once wished aloud that her own mother would die. When her mother scolded her, Therese explained that then she could sooner go to heaven. My children received this anecdote with perverse joy, telling their siblings to jump off a bridge, run out in the street, and let go of the tree branch…that you…
Read MoreA Rabbi, a Priest, and a Wedding: Part 1
March 30, 2016
Father Bill offered a set of instructions. “Walk beside me, never on my left, but always on my right.” I nodded. “And we’re walking towards Jesus.” He pointed across the church. “Shall we practice?” “Yes, please,” I answered. We processed up the aisle, an elderly priest and a young, female rabbi. I matched his steps.…
Read MoreBelieving in the Beach Boys
March 29, 2016
The first church I attended as a teenaged new believer swiftly taught me two doctrines: There won’t be any Democrats in heaven. Secular music is tantamount to heresy. The first one was easy enough to get. Reagan had saved us from the devil Jimmy Carter, and now Jesus had the go-ahead to return whenever he…
Read MoreFairies and Mystics
March 28, 2016
On the first day of summer, my daughter created a makeshift microphone in the backyard with a curved branch stuck into the wet soil. Behind, her younger brother beat on an upturned ice cream bucket with two sticks. They were practicing fairy music, they said, to welcome the fairies on summer solstice. Three days earlier,…
Read MoreDancing on the Way to Prison
March 18, 2016
I’m standing in a circle with thirty singing and swaying old men and we hold each other’s hands because of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and signal the presence of His Spirit by fluttering our fingers during certain parts of the song, the fluttering strange at first and then completely appropriate and satisfying. There…
Read MoreChanging Positions: A Meditation for Campaign Season
March 17, 2016
(With help from Donovan, D. T. Suzuki, Qingyuan Weixin, Wallace Stevens, democracy, REM, Bonnie Raitt, David Bowie, Stanley Kunitz, neuroscience, Torah, Ben Bag Bag, The Rabbis, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, you.) First there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is. Donovan, are you flip-flopping? Or is it you, mountain? It…
Read MoreWhat Happened to Fun?
March 16, 2016
I was so good, and for such a long time, two weeks at least of decent work and adherence to my schedule. Two weeks of self control, discipline, and a rule—twenty minutes of prayer, ten of spiritual reading, thirty of new writing, one to two hours of old writing and editing, fifteen of cleaning and…
Read MoreThe Living Among the Dead
March 14, 2016
Thanksgiving Day after I turned four: high fever at dinner, a drive through a blizzard, then a spinal tap. Meningitis. The nurse promised me angels, and they floated from the bright examination light to the floor, and this is all I remember: paper angels filling the emergency room, snow falling outside, my mother crying. For…
Read MorePoetry Friday: “Meditation on the Evangelista”
March 11, 2016
What if God turned up at your door in the form of a brush salesman? That’s the premise that Karen An-Hwei Lee’s prose-poem plays with. Mystery and comedy merge in this delightful meditation. First, an unnamed “He” does not do certain everyday things, like shampooing your carpet. Then “God” slips into the poem as the…
Read MorePraying the Rosary
March 10, 2016
My first rosary is invisible: a string of children’s voices ricocheting off the concrete walls of a slum convent, flying up to God and to the cold gray batting of the Altiplano sky. The children’s eyes are chapped with wind and cold, lines feathered like wings in their brown skin. This gives them a mask…
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