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.
DIVINE INTOXICATION
IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING
Let’s start off the week with a laugh, and a tear… “He entered my room and said: ‘Poor creature, you who understand nothing. Come with me and I will teach you things which you do not suspect.’ I followed him. He took me into a church. It was new and ugly. He led me up […]
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.
MARCH-APRIL SPRING 2021 WRITING WORKSHOP!!
HEATHER KING, SPRING 2021, 8-WEEK WRITING WORKSHOP!!
MARCH 6-APRIL 24, 12-2 PST. $625.
PEACE! BE STILL!
Around 2:00, I glanced at my phone, noticed a Voicemail and saw the transcription: “I have your wallet at the giftshop at the church.” My wallet!
MOVIES AND MORE MOVIES
WOMEN’S PRISON MOVIES: Caged (1950) Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead. “She’ll be back.” Don’t miss the scene where butch sadistic prison matron steps out for her Saturday night date, lording it over and leaving the love-starved inmates to twist and turn. Turn the Key Softly (1953), dir. Jack Lee; British drama starring Yvonne Mitchell, Joan Collins (surprise) as a prostitute, Kathleen Harrison and Terence Morgan. Three women from different backgrounds are released from prison over the course of 24 hours each face a struggle to avoid returning to her criminal ways.
THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL
St. Paul fell off his horse, but Christ comes in the form of a lamb, a dove, a heron. That’s not to say he’s always gentle. But he’s often gentlest when we’ve been doing terrible violence to ourselves and others.
ROBERT MACFARLANE’S LOST WORDS
His capacity to conjure landscape is alone astounding. Add to that an astonishingly wide-ranging grasp of geography, geology, natural history, cartography, and literature. Throw in the fact that he’s no mere scholar or armchair philosopher: every book is grounded in his willingness to take on the physical hardship of mountain climbing, hiking, camping, sailing, and tramping. But what makes Macfarlane sublime is the aching longing for a lost Eden that sounds like a bass note beneath all his work.
RELIGION AROUND BILLIE HOLIDAY
Holiday was no poster child for political correctness. She frequently chose—in fact, sought out—men who abused her physically and emotionally. She was notoriously profligate with money, food, and space, sharing her apartment at times with pimps, prostitutes, addicts. Her fondest wish was to have kids, open a home for orphaned children, and have her own little supper club, maybe 200 seats, where she could feed people and sing.
Instead, she was “existentially correct”….
A PERPETUAL STIMULUS TO CHARACTER-CREATION
I found this quote in a book called C.S. Lewis’s List: The Ten Books That Influenced Him Most. It’s from the chapter on Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson. I instantly recognized myself and realized Oh, maybe that’s why I find human contact draining! “The older I grow, the more clearly I see that this […]
DESIRE PATHS: A GUEST POEM
“All conspiring without a plan,
unmapped siren channels
through a city at your feet. “
O HOLY NIGHT
Advent, as always, has been packed with emotion. I become over-excited, awaiting the birth of the Christ child so eagerly that my sleep is thrown off. With Daylight Savings Time, my circadian rhythm naturally leans more toward both early nights and early mornings. I love waking in the dark, lighting the beeswax candles, opening the […]
THE MIRACLE OF THE LOAVES AND FISHES
“You can picture the stage set: Christ, the Messiah, seated on top of the mountain: the crowds so far below they are literally at his feet. They have to crane their necks to see his face.”