Catholic, Gay, and Feeling Fine, Thanks
The first few mornings in Peru, the roosters next door woke me up. There was what sounded like a field full of them next door, a whole tribe, saluting the sun hours before it would arrive. We were up at five and off to the chapel for morning prayers. Then back to bed — lucky…
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A man is walking along the beach with an old friend. Suddenly he realizes two things: he’s dead, and the old friend is Jesus. And it isn’t just any beach: it’s his life. He can see his footprints from different times in his life — little baby footprints,…
…from a video we watched in my support group last night: There’s nothing you can do that will make God love you any less than He already does. But also — fellow perfectionists and Pelagians take note — there’s nothing you can do that will make God love you any more than He already does….
A quick excerpt, heavily paraphrased, from my phone conversation with Fr. T. the other night. You think this is coming from yourself, but it’s not. What would you do if you were at work and someone came up to you and said, “You’re no good at your job. You’re a disaster as a web developer….
Falling in love has got to be the most humiliating thing ever. Call it a besetting sin, call it a weakness, or just call it the human condition — this is one of the biggest deals for me, and every time I think I’m all done, I get smacked upside the head with it. You’d…
When I was young I asked my mother: How come God is the one who’s God, instead of somebody else? I don’t remember what she said, and I still don’t know the answer, unless the answer is “That’s the wrong question.” Or: God is not the kind of being who might have been otherwise. Or:…
A reader sent me part of this quotation from C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Since it’s better than anything I’m likely to come up with tonight, I’ll pass it along. It’s been too long since I’ve read that book. If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you…
So I says to the Lord at the beginning of this Lent, “Lord,” I says, “let’s keep things on the surface this year. I think I’m in a pretty good spot.” “Yeah?” He says. “Yeah,” I say. “I mean, I’ll give stuff up and so forth. I’m no slacker, I’ll even tackle something big. But…
It’d be nice if we were angels, wouldn’t it? None of this back-and-forth, these mixed motives, these bodies that never work right, that have to be fed every single day, that bits keep on falling off of. Just be what you are, all in one piece (or maybe no pieces?), and that’s that. It’s not…
