Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, prelate of the Episcopal Church had the audacity to do something truly radical recently: she asked a president for mercy. Mercy is not necessarily entirely foreign to this particular president. He showed “mercy” to 1,500 men and women pardoned on his first day in office, some charged with violent crimes, for […]
Tag: vulnerability

Quarantine, Day 327, Or Cat Theology
Sometimes, when the house is particularly quiet, you can hear Freya’s paws pitter-patter across the hardwood floor, and having never had an indoor cat, there’s something special to me about the way she moves with this persistant grace that always brings me calm and gets me excited at the same time. She’s taken sometimes to […]

Quarantine, Day 50
The longer this pandemic flows on, the more it seems the days grow somehow quieter, eerily quiet in fact. The bar beneath us hasn’t made a peep in well over a month. There are fewer cars on the street below, fewer voices on the corner with no one waiting for the bus. I know it’s […]
The Lie of the ‘Great American Resurrection’
Last week when Trump said he wanted the country “open by Easter,” a Fox News anchor referred to it as the “great American resurrection.” The reference to the Easter tradition, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, is an obvious attempt to signal to Trump’s evangelical base that this president really is a person of faith, a […]
Quarantine, Day 13
Right after I returned from twenty-seven months of Peace Corps service, the next three years were absolute mental hell. I had actually returned by boat, leaving from Barcelona and landing in Fort Lauderdale, and maybe it’s because of the sea legs I couldn’t shake for nearly a month, but I began to believe in the […]

Ten Thousand Days.
A hard rain fell on New York City today. It was one of those more memorable rains where even if you’re not out in the thick of it, the way it’s just lapping at the windows in intermittent sheets has everyone staring outdoors like they’ve never seen rain before. Maybe, too, it’s the way the […]