Writing, Parenting, and Working in the Mess: Authentic Spirituality and Social Justice

This Sunday, I'll sing Christos Anesti, the Easter song, for the last time this year. In the Greek Orthodox tradition, it's Ascension Sunday; in the Western tradition, Pentacost. You probably remember this part of the story: Jesus dies, the earth shakes, some rich guy offers to provide a new grave for his body, which is carefully guarded. A bunch of faithful women discover that his body is not there and hear the angel explain that he’s risen, as he said he would. They are overjoyed or full of fear, depending on which version you read, but either way, they run off and tell others, who tell others, who tell others, and the church, as we know it, with all of its flaws, is born. And that's where the story of Jesus' life on earth would end it wasn’t for the Book of Acts (and the tail end of a couple of the Gospels). After the Resurrection, Jesus returns to walk among his followers, who sometimes recognize him and sometimes don’t? He finally ascends to heaven “for real” 40 da...

A woman I knew, five years younger than me, died this weekend. I can’t really call her a friend, though I’ve known her since I moved here nine years ago—at her funeral, I realized she is one of the few people who has been a constant in my life for all nine of those years, someone who truly seems to me to embody this place, perhaps because I’ve known her in a number of different contexts. During my first couple years here, she was an activity aide at the nursing home where I ran my service-learning project. She stood out because she was always joking with the elders, finding some way to both poke fun at them and with them-- she seemed to love her job. I was also a frequent patron at some of the bars in town around that time, and we would often run into each other, have a couple drinks—though for the life of me I can’t remember a single thing we actually said to each other. Later, she was a student involved in service-learning classes and in feminist work on campus, juggling a family li...

Note: I wrote this about two weeks ago, but I’m just getting around to posting it. Before S, my house (and my phone line) were safe spaces for people to come and talk about nearly anything. Although my life has changed significantly, I still have phone and in person conversations when S is in the vicinity that she probably shouldn’t hear. She understands this, but doesn’t always remember not to repeat what she knows. Finally, after some talk about this in our family counseling, we have managed to figure out how much she should know about other people’s lives and how to set up boundaries. There is also the question about my own past and our family’s history. What should and shouldn’t she be told, for instance, about what kind of father my father was? About my dating history? These issues are a little less sticky, as I have decided honesty is, in general, the best policy here. I don’t have to tell every detail, but it’s important for S to have some sense of the history that she would ha...

Note: This was written three weeks ago; I am just getting around to posting. Each time my life seems to settle into a rhythm, something changes again. Right after writing that, I said out loud, “What am I talking about?” My life, truth be told, has always been chaotic. I think maybe I welcome this chaos, even if I don’t choose it exactly. Or maybe I do choose it. I chose, after all, to take S into my life; I chose to leave my partner of six years; I chose to move to a small town in the middle of nowhere and to make a home here. Each choice has meant leaving behind, starting over. Each choice has irrevocably changed me. Sometimes I imagine moments in my life when I could have chosen differently. Not gone to the college I chose. (I might not have become a writer, or a teacher, or a person who cares about the world beyond herself). Not moved to Cincinnati to work in publishing. (I might not have finally come out). Not kissed the woman I would spend three years loving and hating—the worst ...