The Wonders of That Particular Time
Have you ever woken up in the morning and that song is going through your head? I’m not referring to any particular song, just the particular song that happens be to be going through your head when you wake up in the morning that that’s been an occasional earworm for the past two days, and […]
Five Harmful Religious Ideas I Had to Unlearn about Sex
This post originally appeared two years ago on Removing the Fig Leaf. I was born a Pentecostal. My background was not as extreme as Kim Davis’s Pentecostalism, but I did grow up on Jimmy Swaggart and “That Thing†and homophobia and overt misogyny and stories of demon sex spirits imprinting pornographic images on my mind […]
Replacing Passive-Aggressiveness with Grace and Beauty
Last week, I drove my daughter’s iPad down to her at to school. One of the Blue Shirts there in the parking lot approached me and asked what I was doing, and told me, “we get a little concerned,” because I was waiting there for her. I figured, as soon as he realized I was […]
The Joy of Old Friends and New Family
In early August, while the girls were at camp, I spent a lot of uninterrupted time with Tessie-cat. At almost-19 years, she’s even older (in cat years) than I am. I call her “my geriatric cat,” which is what she is. All she did for the whole week was to sit on the back on […]
News Flash! This Is NOT a Big Deal
We make life more complicated than it needs to be. In the most vibrant and optimistic time in human history, we live without hope. And I’m including myself in that “we.” Last week, my Beloved and I celebrated our 19’th wedding anniversary. And you might think after 19 years, it’s getting a little old… and […]
The View from Someone Else’s Eyes
Shared recently by a friend of mine (on one of those social networking sites), a heartbreaking story, but not for the reasons you might expect. A pretty, young woman is riding the train, reading a book. The entire car is empty, except for her and a quiet, elderly gentleman near the back. A young man […]
Once you’ve walked in my shoes…
A friend of mine remarked today (in a private online forum), “Once you’ve walked in the shoes I walk in, live the life I live, and feel the pain I feel, then you can judge me.” This is a common sentiment, which has inspired some powerful stories, and which inspired some involved thoughts of my […]
Reaching across Generations, an Interview with Sandra
I’m sitting here in my virtual living room with Sandra, of one of my favorite blogs Add Humor and Faith…mix well. I absolutely love her stories, especially the ones about her and her Hubby. And I actually wanted to have her over (virtually) for Valentine’s Day, to talk about love and marriage. But because of […]
A Date at the Laundromat
A romance thread at Sherry the Redhead Riter’s “BlogNTweet” forum reminded me of this story. Sherry asked how often we date. Now, of course, I don’t date, because my Beloved (formerly “the Missus”), she doesn’t let me date. (It’s probably better that way.) But we do “date” each other, occasionally… Well… We used to date, […]
A Young Love Story: The Sister I Never Had
Just before my 15’th birthday, my father attended a weekend business meeting at a small college in Utica, NY, and the whole family came along for a weekend road trip. Hung up on a girl I had met in school, before I had left for Utica, she and I argued. Words were spoken. Angers flared. […]