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

S has remembered more details: a child prostitution ring, who knows how many rapists. How they hoped she'd get pregnant, and that the baby would be a girl. She cannot forgive them unless she gets justice, she says, so we are on that road: in the next week, we'll hear back from a police officer in the city where she grew up, find out for sure what our first step is, but it looks right now as if she will need to tell her story to a local officer. Luckily, I know most of them, so we will be able to make this happen in a way that feels as safe as possible for her. But what happens next, I can't control. All of it, so out of our control. I have told her it's OK to stop at any time. I have told her that she does not have to take this on. I have told her I'll be there for her, no matter what she decides. She wants to know if she's allowed to cry. She wants to know if I'm sure I'll always love her. She wants to know if I'm sure it was her fault, any of it. A...

I can’t believe this, but the Greek Orthodox Church has a website. I wonder what the church fathers and mothers would think about the images of saints showing up on a computer screen. Not only that, but a person can sign up to have daily scripture readings and stories of the saints delivered directly to her e-mail inbox. So, because I couldn’t think of a better idea for a way to honor Lent, I signed up for those readings and promised myself that I’d read them every morning. I decided I would also go back to an old morning discipline I abandoned some three years ago of writing three stream-of-consciousness pages every morning. I would read through the e-mail once, and then just start writing, not worrying about whether what I was getting down had anything to do with the readings for that day. And, within a week, it became painfully clear why I’d given up those morning pages around the same time my partner and I broke up. As they are intended to do, they break down all the barriers a ...