Last week was hard. There were fresh waves of anxiety over a huge spike in Covid cases in my city. Relief that our curve was flat for so many months gave way to weariness and worry. Now each day we're getting more new cases than we had total from March to mid-June. Our curve is flat....just in the wrong direction: straight up to the sky. The city is open--and our total deaths doubled last week. … [Read more...]
The False Gods of American Politics
“I’ve been uncomfortable speaking out against racism because it sounds like something a liberal would say.” “I’m struggling to reconcile my pro-life beliefs with ‘conservative’ policies that that deny the dignity of immigrants and the poor.” “I’m politically homeless because I think that the lives of unborn babies and black and brown people should be protected.” “I love the beauty … [Read more...]
‘Emma’ Film Review: A Delightful (but Slightly Flawed) Visual Banquet
The very short list of good things resulting from this pandemic are people making their own bread, more time to read, and the new adaptation of Emma being released to stream in your living room. Yes, dear reader, Universal has heard your cries for Jane Austen and if you didn’t see it the movie theatre before they closed, you don’t have to wait for this viral outbreak to be over to watch Emma. … [Read more...]
Why You Should Read This Book by a Guy Who Sat and Talked to People at McDonald’s: A Review of Dignity by Chris Arnade
If I could suggest only two books about the current landscape of America right now they would be Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson about our prison system and the recently released Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America by Chris Arnade. I first heard of Arnade from my husband, Daniel, who started following him on Twitter ages ago. “Have you heard of the guy who sits and talks to people who … [Read more...]
“Tolkien” Struggles to Explain the Magic that Tolkien Effortlessly Captured
In Tolkien, the new movie based on the early life of J. R. R. Tolkien, myth and romance are the antidote to war. Guest Review by Boze Herrington “To be caught in youth by 1914,” wrote English novelist J. R. R. Tolkien in a second-edition foreword to The Lord of the Rings, “was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close … [Read more...]
Don’t Be Paralyzed by the “Ideal” Creative Routine
This tweet about author Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing routine came across my path this weekend: Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing routine is the ideal writing routine. pic.twitter.com/D0sXigDvWe — Michael J Seidlinger (@mjseidlinger) January 18, 2019 Honestly it sounds dreamy...and nothing like my writing routine. So I thought I'd share mine: All night long: Nurse the baby 6am: First … [Read more...]
A Reading Challenge for Catholics in 2019: CathLIT!
One of my favorite things about the internet is having more people to talk about books with. And I love seeing reading challenges from my favorite writers and bloggers pop into my inbox this time of year. I thought it would be fun (mostly to get some accountability for my own 2019 reading list!) to set up a reading challenge of 19 Catholic books for 2019 so we could all dive a little deeper … [Read more...]
The Triumph and Necessity of Festivity: Why We Trick-or-Treat
To Halloween or to not Halloween? While Halloween began as All Hallows Eve, the vigil before All Hallows (All Saints Day), and certainly has Catholic roots, whether to participate in cultural celebrations of a now secularized Halloween is controversial in Christian circles. In the Protestant circles I grew up in, “Fall Festival” parties or “Reformation Day” parties were the order of the day. … [Read more...]
Do You Need to Remember You’re a Human Being?
One of the worst things about modern life is the push to live at high speed. Most of us are rushing around trying to keep our heads above water. Not only do we not have time for self-care, we don't have time to even figure out what we would do for self-care if we did! I think “self-care” is a tricky phrase. It can be interpreted as selfishness or putting our own needs before the needs of those … [Read more...]
Why Catholics Should Be Aware of (and Denounce) the White Supremacist Ideology of the Alt-Right
The other day I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw an image of a family. The caption added by my Catholic Facebook friend was the beautiful quote by Pope St John Paul II “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.” This particular quote communicates a beautiful Catholic view of family, but the image accompanying it immediately made me hesitate. It … [Read more...]
