Crunch time means devoting an inordinate amount of mental space and physical exertion to “stuff” for a while. One function of the Incarnation, I’ve been thinking, is that we are constantly constantly carrying stuff from one place to another. Take a look around next time you’re out. Guys with plastic bags dangling from their handlebars, kids with backpacks, mothers with strollers, pickup trucks laded with rakes, shovels, trash barrels, all of us hauling bags of groceries into the kitchen after a Trader Joe’s run.
CULTURE
BEHIND THE SCENES WITH AN ART INSTALLER
The real thrill is getting to put (gloved) hands on these works. “In a gallery there’s often a stanchion or a tape line on the floor. We have the luxury and honor of being the people who are actually allowed up close. Are these D-rings strong enough? What if a viewer inadvertently jostles this pedestal: is the work sufficiently secured?”
DESERT SOLITAIRE
Devastating discovery: Tucson does not have 99 Cents Only Stores, which have been a mainstay of my marketing life for many years. Cleaning supplies, toiletries, produce, oat milk, coconut water, flax seed…Aspirin, cough drops, hydrogen peroxide, Sour Patch Watermelon…I’m sure I have saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars at the 99.
WANTED: DISTURBING HOMILIES!
Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins: Recently I heard a homily in which the priest shared that he and his brethren are generally instructed by their superiors not to say anything that will disturb people. I almost wept. If we’re not here to be disturbed, to be challenged, to be called higher, […]
PASOLINI AND ME PODCAST!
More podcast fun. This one is from Catholic Culture, with Thomas Mirus and James T. Majewski, good Catholic boys from NYC. Here’s the YouTube blurb: “In 1962, inspired by Pope St. John XXIII’s outreach to non-Christian artists, a gay communist picked up the Gospels and ended up making a film about Jesus. Nervous yet? But […]
MY PODCAST ABOUT MONEY
Here’s an interview I taped a while back with the wonderful Chloe Langr, of the podcast Letters to Women – Exploring the Feminine Genius. The title is “A Letter to the Woman Hungry for an Honest Conversation About Money.” But if you’re a hungry guy, that’s totally okay, too! Thank you, Chloe!
MORNING LIGHT
Every once in a while I end up at some strange, random church and hear a homily that makes me sit up straight. The priest at the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Nogales, AZ, in the gentlest possibly way, pointed out that every one of us is exactly like Judas. How many times have we sold him out for thirty pieces of silver–or, for that matter, way less?…
MEDIOCRITY BARE OF PATHOS
“How difficult it is to recognize the self-revealing God! How difficult to steer clear of the scandal to the worldly sense of propriety and righteousness!”
SILENCE AND THE EXISTENTIAL DESERT
Recently I had lunch with a dear friend of many decades, a convert like me who last year was diagnosed with an aggressive form of skin cancer and has undergone surgery, skin grafts, radiation, chemo, and excruciating nerve pain.
“So have you been going through a huge existential desert, or what?” I kicked off the conversation.
NOAH’S ARK AT THE SKIRBALL
Some calamities consist in real-life storms. Then there are metaphorical storms in our lives. Where do we seek shelter, find home, seek the helpers?
NOW IS THE TIME TO AWAKE FROM SLEEP
“Awake tends to draw survivors who are deeply wounded but who want to remain in the Church. They want their pain to be heard and held, not papered over. They often want to talk to someone who is part of the Church but not part of the diocesan hierarchy.”
THE TEMPTATION IN THE DESERT, LA STYLE
Looking out over the vast expanse of our smog-shrouded metropolis, I imagined Satan tempting Christ with the keys of greater LA.
NOMAD: BRUCE CHATWIN AND WERNER HERZOG
Perhaps it was inevitable that these two self-mythologizing figures would meet. Their paths intersected, not always at the same time, at many points throughout their respective travels.
ACTING AS IF
“Acting as if” doesn’t mean pretending everything’s “all right” and that we’re not in terrible pain; it means not transmitting our pain to, or blaming our pain on, others.