This week I received a birthday greeting from a family member. Like all of the others from this relative, the rather expensive card was carefully selected — this one specific to a 70-year-old male — and simply signed with their name. There was no preface to the card nor a closing to personalize it. I…
Fifty-five years ago I was in a friary, preparing to join a religious order. During my time there, immediately after the Second Vatican Council, we still maintained many of the old ways of the Order. You could join at age 13, for example. We observed the Hours of prayer (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Sext, Terse, etc.).…
This month I will be turning 70 years old. When I turned 50, I decided to prepare for the date by celebrating each month prior to the actual date. After all, I reasoned, I experienced my 50th August 11 months before I experienced my 50th July. These early celebrations put the actual day into a new…
Right now I cannot tell which of these facets of the recent rulings about travel bans and immigration by the Supreme Court and the Trump administration is most disturbing: the “limited” application of the ban, the use of the term bona fide, the lack of adequate outcry by any group of people whose relationships were…
Like many children raised by same-sex parents in the U.S., Jesus was raised by an adoptive parent who had no legal standing. Joseph’s child bride got pregnant after she heard some archaic form of the too familiar expression, “Baby, I wanna get with you.” What with the hurried visit to aging relatives, fast betrothal, and…
I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. – Simone de Beauvoir Three children. Two miscarriages, at least. A shaky marriage. A will born for survival in an adolescent girl, now a woman who would not be controlled. She needed to work to…
When I was a little boy, I heard a recording of the story of Peter Rabbit and the terrible Mr. McGregor who was determined to rid his garden of rabbits, even if it meant killing the little terrified hero of the story. After being chased round and round, Peter escapes the clutches of the villain,…
And that’s why birds do it, bees do it Even educated fleas do it — Cole Porter, 1928 Recently I was asked a question that, in various forms and various contexts, comes up from time to time. It goes something like, “Do you believe that gay men are having more risky sex as treatments for…
A favorite passage in The Velveteen Rabbit for my friend for life, Jan, and me is the part where the Skin Horse and the rabbit talk about becoming real. In that section, the horse recalls how he became real when another little boy loved him into becoming. The rabbit is skeptical, but later in the story,…
This week I have been writing about love in anticipation of Valentine’s Day. I have written about three facets of love as these apply to interpersonal relationships and civic relationships, namely intimacy, passion, and commitment. The particular model of love that I ascribe to differs from the Greeks, Romans, St. Paul of Tarsus, or Santa.…
Creating Community for Everyone 