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A Rabbi, a Priest, and a Wedding: Part 1

By Danielle LeshawMarch 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.…

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Honey, I Want a Tattoo

By Brad FruhauffJanuary 15, 2016

If Katie had had a tattoo when we met, I probably would have married her thinking it quirky or even, perhaps, kind of cool. But when we married her only unusual body mod was a tasteful nose ring. Fast forward twenty years. Out of the blue she says to me: “I want a tattoo.” My…

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The Affair and the End of It

By Alissa WilkinsonOctober 29, 2015

The second season of Showtime’s The Affair premiered at the beginning of October. In the show, Noah, a forty-something apparently-happily-married novelist, goes to Montauk for the summer with his wife and kids. He meets Alison, who is also married, about ten years his junior, and still grieving the tragic death of her young son years earlier.…

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My Days of Awe, 5776

By Richard ChessSeptember 28, 2015

Impatience. Anger. Wastefulness. Restlessness. Desire. Haughtiness. Greed. Judgement. Pride.        § I’ve been paying attention, especially the last few days. Now it’s getting serious. It’s the morning of the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.              § Yesterday, just after I walked into the house after ten-and-a-half…

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Becoming Food

By Elizabeth DuffySeptember 18, 2015

At five a.m. this morning, my husband woke me while taking money from my wallet to buy donuts for himself and our fourth child who was to accompany him to the lumberyard. He was buying wood to build a picnic table and a couple of porch swings. My husband shouldn’t be driving a car. He…

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For the Newlyweds

By Richard ChessSeptember 4, 2015

May you have the courage to let go of everything you know about yourselves—everything you have learned about yourselves up to this moment—that you may discover and create, invent and define new selves, a new braided Self. Like Sabbath candles that, at the start of Shabbat, stand side by side, each its own brilliance, its own accomplishment, may you move toward each other until you become like the braided Havdalah candle, its individual wicks joined to create of several a single, strong flame that is lifted into the sky at the end of Sabbath.

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Happy Pride Parade

By Peggy RosenthalAugust 11, 2015

In the late 1960s, a friend in my graduate school program was gay. But at that time, there was no such thing as “in” or “out” of the closet. There wasn’t even a closet…or there couldn’t have been one huge enough to hold all the gay people who had to keep their sexual lives secret. Not even a barn would have been big enough. Maybe a stadium…

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Beauty, Christian Love, and Gay Marriage

By Morgan MeisJuly 14, 2015

Justice Anthony Kennedy, in the recent Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, wrote the following concluding paragraph:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

Quite a few commentators have noted the beauty and elegance of this statement’s prose (not a given for Justice Kennedy, who’s been known to drift toward the purple with his pen). Jordan Weissmann, for instance, titled a post for Slate “The Beautiful Closing Paragraph of Justice Kennedy’s Gay Marriage Ruling.”

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Dancing for My Life, Part 2

By Tony WoodliefJuly 2, 2015

During the course of my first marriage, I saw a bevy of marriage counselors. I can now say with some conviction: to hell with therapists; get yourself a dance instructor.

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Dancing for My Life, Part 1

By Tony WoodliefJuly 1, 2015

So here we are. Gulya instructs me how to turn Maggie without trampling her. You have to take short steps when she is turning, she explains. Yes, the dance has a structure, but we have to accommodate ourselves to one another. Dancing isn’t just steps, it’s you and your partner.

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