24 Dec 2022

Starry Skies, but Hold the Ugly Sweaters

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It’s that time of year when knowing your priorities is extra-important. Will you dash around trying to accomplish everything, meeting expectations you’ve set for yourself about how much you can do and also how well you’ll pull it off? Will you go along with cultural norms just because they’re out there? Or, will you be content with not focusing on either the quantity or the quality of stuff (whatever you perform, whatever you wrap up, etc.) and instead try to … Read More
27 Mar 2022

Welcoming Bad Bunny Into Our Household

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Just as millions of Christians worldwide start up the on-ramp towards Easter Sunday, a certain mega-star has joined — in a manner of speaking — this particular clergy family. If you don’t know him (and that can be forgiven), here are some facts: he has been the most streamed artist of the year on Spotify, his genre is called reggaeton, he is huge throughout the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and also in New York City (where this photo was taken, during a … Read More
3 Jun 2021

Everything’s Blooming, but on TV, It’s Not So Rosy

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“You don’t usually go for stuff like that,” my husband said the other evening in the kitchen. I’ve asked you to watch some dark shows with me before, like True Detective, and you left the room.” He was surprised that I’d been recently taken in by the HBO seven-part series Mare of Easttown. That morning, I’d started jabbering about the end of the second episode, as he was barely waking up. My re-telling hadn’t gone over too well, making him … Read More
27 Jul 2019

Some Gaps We Don’t Mind; This One– Yes

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It’s a good thing it’s so beautiful, day after summer day, right here at home, because we don’t have much for travel plans. Blame it on the will-it-ever-end revising work; blame it on the dog and no dog sitter; don’t blame it on the kids. But really, it’s OK. I bet not absolutely everyone is gallivanting around, anyway. And besides, I already had an unusual trip to California just as summer was starting. It’s appropriate that this happened more than … Read More
25 Oct 2016

Trading One Kind of Tumult for Another: The Beatles as Antidote

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As the World Series gets underway, it’s as good a time as any to celebrate the idea of fervor, in a variety of forms. I propose to start with baseball, move gingerly through politics to rock & roll, and end up at religion. Are you with me? Defined as “an intense and passionate feeling,” the word can definitely go either way—that is, there can be a kind you like and another kind you can’t stand. The fervor that Chicago fans … Read More
20 Apr 2016

Tell It Like It is, and I’ll Listen

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“Is it LIT, Miss?” That’s how one girl at school greets me on a daily basis now, knowing that I’m trying to get a handle on some of the teenage lingo swirling around the hallways. She’s amused by the fact that I’m keen to learn how they say things, and why. Some sophomore boys, picking up on my interest, have taken it upon themselves to give me mini-lessons, stopping by my office between classes. This, needless to say, lifts the … Read More
9 Apr 2016

About Ourselves, We Have Mixed Feelings

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Ever put yourself out there and then wish desperately that you hadn’t? I have, probably about a million times; such is the story of the life of an unrepentant extrovert. As my kids will attest, it’s not easy for me to head into a convenience store and refrain from initiating conversation with someone who happens to be there getting milk at the same time. Friendliness or just too much assertion of self? I’m never sure. During the past decade, though, … Read More
21 Mar 2016

The Passion and All Of Our Other Passions

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Spring began with a snowfall last night, while a single word from the season offers contrasting meanings, bringing the religious and secular worlds into collision yet again. I feel right at home. Yesterday the sky was clear blue and the air fresh and cold for Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. And so the Passion begins. In my particular life, this marks just over a quarter of a century since I’ve been fully aware—or at least as fully aware … Read More
7 Jan 2015

Madonna and Me: On the Borderline

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  Did you ever think, when New Year’s Day rolls around, it might be time to sneer at those paltry resolutions and go for a really big change? Leave your old self behind and step into a whole new identity perhaps? I apologize for being late with my post here, but that’s because I’ve been cooking up a really exciting idea. How’s this for starting off 2015 with some flair? Pastor’s Wife takes a big dose of Pop Queen and … Read More
26 Nov 2014

Would You Like a Little Magic With That Bird?

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If you’re expecting something all nice and dripping with gratitude on the cusp of Thanksgiving Day, I’m sorry to disappoint you. That namby-pamby stuff doesn’t interest me much today. While I do of course hope that you’ll have a splendid and congenial feast with your loved ones, my subject brings with it some rancor, some bristles up, some heightened tension. There is, however, at least a Bird involved. Maybe my mood can be attributed partly to what just happened during … Read More

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