“This author really pissed me off,” I told my husband the other day. I brandished a book called Soon: An Overdue History of Procrastination, by Andrew Santella. My anger surprised my husband. He enjoys a heated debate while I tend to shy away from black-and-white argument. But this book? I ranted about it for fifteen […]
Freedom
The Rightness of Clothes
You know that thing where you show up for a fashion show in such amazing clothes that the photographers there assume you’re Someone Famous and photograph you? But actually you’re a sixty-something Fordham social work professor and just have really fabulous taste? And because of that photo shoot, you become a fashion icon, model, and […]
Women Have a History
“History is no longer just a chronicle of kings and statesmen, of people who wielded power, but of ordinary women and men engaged in manifold tasks. Women’s history is an assertion that women have a history.” ~Aparna Basu, Professor of History at the University of Delhi, India And what a history it is! From warriors like Boudica, Zenobia, […]
What I Want Them to Remember
Their nightstand and bookshelves tell you all you’d need to know. Anne of Green Gables, Ramona, Laura Ingalls Wilder. We have Girls Think of Everything, Rosie Revere Engineer, Not One Damsel in Distress. Harriet Tubman. Helen Keller. Sojourner Truth. Marie Curie. These are their heroes. We go through our Bible with care and find all […]
Zen and the Art of Acceptance
My sister and I sat cross-legged, waiting to learn about meditation. Someone filled the little porcelain cups with steaming green tea; they grew warm in our hands. I looked around the makeshift temple in what looked like it used to be a gas station. Bars on the windows reminded us we were in the heart […]
Hope and Healing for the Sexually Broken
A heads up: this post is about pornography, lust, masturbation, and sexual orientation, but more importantly it’s about a woman calling out to God in her desperate need and God answering her with Himself. Before you read it, please remember something that normally goes without saying: people have the right to share their lived experiences, […]
Same-Sex Attraction and Me
I used to lie in bed at night and pray to not wake up. I wanted to be gone, I wanted it to be gone. I struggled, prayed and did the right things. I still do the right things and put in the work, but I am still, for as long as I can remember, […]
The Slow Nature of New Things
What does it mean for God to do a new thing? Seven hundred years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah wrote, For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. (Isaiah […]
Coloring In Christmas With My Favorite Things
Raindrops on rooftops and polka dot mittens Bright lights that flicker and Big Momma’s kitchen Brown chorus angels whose robes look like wings These are a few of my favorite things. Buttermilk cornbread and crisp chicken drumsticks Hotels with stairwells and greens that are handpicked Wildflowers that spread in dry deserts I’ve seen These […]
Solitude and Silence in a Noisy World
I saw my chance. Could I do it? Could I get away with two minutes by myself? My two toddlers were glued to the TV screen watching Sesame Street. Maybe I could actually go to the bathroom alone. Perhaps I could have a moment of solitude. But thirty seconds after I closed the bathroom door […]
Being Gentle With My Limited Bandwidth
The biology professor ahead of me is loping down the hall with a coffee mug in hand. I follow him into the administration wing, down a flight of stairs to the coffee maker. Before he reaches it, I make a comment that once again I’m grabbing a Styrofoam cup. “Don’t judge me!” I plead. He […]
Integrity Is The Opposite of Cutting Ourselves
Can I tell you an embarrassing story? Picture me and a guy I liked sitting together on some stairs on our college campus. We’re having a serious DTR. Since the first time I met this guy, I thought he was super-cute, and over the last year and a half, we’ve spent more and more time […]