I’m not really thinking about Christmas much right now. There are too many pieces of life still unresolved this December. I can’t see very far ahead–this is driving in fog with my low beams on, not knowing when I’ll arrive where I’m going. But I’m still walking forward, or trying to. This past weekend I spent…
Okay. Okay. I’m fed up with the annual Summer Modesty Argument On The Interwebz. Here’s the rundown: 1) Modesty keeps men’s uncontrollable sex drives in check! vs. NO THAT’S RAPE CULTURE 2) God commands modesty to honor his creation, your body! vs. Uh, modesty is a shame thing and that’s the result of the fall.…
This summer and fall I did a series of posts on incarnation and eating (my two great passions in life), and the [pompously pseudonymous but] excellent and genial thinking fellows over at The Hipster Conservative decided to run the series as a long essay. If you’re new around here, please go read! This is one of my…
My purpose with almost everything I write here is to communicate two things: 1) you are not alone and shame is not from Jesus, and 2) it is possible to develop an authentic theology of the body and live as an embodied sexual being and experience both healthy boundaries and real grace. These two things…
I didn’t expect to write two angry-at-abusive-mindset posts back to back, but here I am. This needs to be said. Christians take romantic relationships too seriously. Not even just courtship-only Christians, or virgins-until-wedding-night Christians. Pretty much any sincere Christian who wants to serve God and honor him with how they handle a romantic relationship is…
I’ve avoided saying these words to myself for a long time, but it’s really the most accurate description: When I was 12, my family moved from California to the east coast to join a cult. I haven’t felt at home anywhere since. *** There were other factors, of course. Economy, family ideals for finding a…
As much as I have been hurt by pretenses of care by Christians, as much as I am cynical about church ministries and the level of care they actually give, I must observe something. I am surprised and delighted to discover: all those things we’re supposed to, pretend to do? Sometimes they happen organically, spontaneously.…
[This is one of the promised posts about why I chose the name “Wine & Marble.” Communion has been a huge part of my spiritual life and binds me to Christianity in a way I can’t really understand or explain. I’ll tell my story and perhaps begin to work it out.] Sometimes I wish I…
This year, because of our tiny apartment space, we can’t have a Christmas tree. It’s not really a big deal, but we’re just babies at this marriage thing, and we don’t own Christmas decorations or a good Christmas music collection, and I haven’t even gotten around to buying cookie cutters for Christmas cookie exchanges. Last…
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death. – T.S. Eliot, “Journey of the Magi” photo by Sweet Bee Photography Last year, I started writing this post. But life swallowed me up…