Month: April 2018

Exiled from my condo by asbestos remediation, I am sitting in my local Starbucks. My famous – or infamous – Starbucks. There are six marked and unmarked police cars outside. I recognize them from endless SEPA WOC demonstrations. No protesters yet. Today in here there are more white than black people, but nobody is denied…
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Imagine my surprise when I read about the women who were shooed out of the sumo wrestling ring in Japan when they tried to save a man’s life. What sounds like “news of the weird” is a serious story about traditions and how harmful they can be. It made me think of Roman Catholicism’s ban…
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Our Joan of Arc is inspiring me again this week (see March 31 post). Emma Gonzalez is quoted by Joan Walsh in The Nation: About the flurry of inadequate but promising gun-safety measures passed [into law] since Parkland, she says: “It feels like: they tried to take a giant step—and then they tripped. I’m not…
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In the admittedly progressive Catholic Church I attend, parishioners have, for years, stood as they and other people received communion and remained standing until all have received and the bread and wine has been put away. The narrative behind this action focused on our being Easter people rejoicing in the once whole, then broken bread…
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Holiness is not something to which I think I am called. Holier than thou is something I might be accused of. But in hearing on the news about Pope Francis’ new document, Gaudete et exsultate, I felt pretty good. I try to follow the Great Commandment and I resist over-intellectualizing things, as you can figure…
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Okay, I’m a grandma, so please bear with me! I think this grandchild-being-irresistably-funny anecdote does have a point for us. No, trust me, really. My two year old grandson was being potty trained and doing quite well, thank you. One day, he and his family were at a restaurant. Mom denied him some treat and…
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Do you know what I did yesterday instead of writing this blog? I went to the Philadelphia parade for the Villanova basketball team, who had just won the NCAA men’s championship. Even if you don’t follow college athletics, you probably saw pictures of Sister Jean, Loyola of Chicago’s chaplain. The Catholic factor was prominent in…
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With all respect to Neil Diamond, not to mention God, what magnificent words! Easter words. In the Old Testament, it is God, in defining God’s self, who says, “I AM” or I AM THAT I AM. How did those words, along with so many others in our scriptural readings, become twisted into statements of ultimate,…
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