Nonaligned faith and practice in the present
When I was a little Lutheran preacher’s kid in 1950s Ohio, the most familiar images of Jesus were ones with children gathered round and sitting on his knee. These accompanied songs like “Jesus Loves Me.”
I was blessed with caring parents and a child-friendly neighborhood, and my father’s sermons were about Jesus’ compassionate
…When Jesus utters the cry
“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”
It is the cry
Of Job, that is,
the cry of every sentient being,
“Why am I dying?”
The only answer that comes back
from the universe is,
“Because you are mortal.”
What is it
I’ve decided I can’t
cope with
that hasn’t happened
yet
That I’d rather
lock my jaw or
pluck out my eye
than face?
A day?
Two? Three?
Before either I
see through to it or
can no longer
On Monday, January 29, 2007, I published this essay on my old Walhydra’s Porch blog. Coming out of the darkness of this particularly dark winter, I feel like it’s worth sharing again. (See Gather Victoria’s post, “Feast of Light: Reviving the Magical Foods of Imbolc,” for a new piece on the festival.)
By now the gentle reader knows what an unrepentant grouch Walhydra wants everyone to think she is…but there’s
There’s something wrong with
how we do winter, making it
the busiest time of year. Our calendar
Is all wrong. Yes, the sun
starts back
on the solstice,
but that just means
we should be rolling over in our sleep
and waiting for
American culture has been fixated from the start on two principles inherited from the 17th century English society that established the colonies: the mandate to cure physical, social, and moral ills, and the primacy of
…Friends,
For those of you who don’t know him, let me introduce you to Crippled Wolf.
Crippled Wolf first came to me in a dream on Friday, October 29, 2004, one morning after a total lunar
Friends,
Here’s a blog post I wrote a decade ago about Yule.
To set the stage for this, you need to know that Walhydra is a writer’s alter-ego of mine, a grouchy old crone who is forever annoyed to have been reincarnated as a 60-something gay male would-be
…There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys.
There’s only you and me and we just disagree. — Dave Mason
What is it we all fear? We fear what our culture—or, rather, whatever part of our culture we pay attention to—tells us to
…The name “Jesus” scares people off, since our sound bite- and meme-driven culture automatically ties that name with what I call the “Christianists,” those abusive people who misuse the sacred tradition of Jesus’ friends as a political ideology, the way Islamists do the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (“Peace be upon
…
…