Ruth Krall's Inanna’s Way: A Personal Journey into the Underworld — A Book Recommendation

I've been walking in the past weeks with some family members as they deal with the diagnosis of someone in their particular family circle who has recently learned he has serious cancer. Taking this journey with these loved ones (to the extent that I can as a cousin and someone less affected in a direct way than they are by this diagnosis) has had me thinking a lot about sickness, suffering, healing, and journeying on all of those paths in our own lives and along with others. 

Easter and the Longing to See Pharoah's Army Drowned: A Project in Which Atheists, Agnostics, and People of Faith Should Be Able to Collaborate

In this Easter Sunday's New York Times, philosopher William Irwin describes a strategy for people who question the notion of God who want to contribute to meaningful conversations in the public square — especially in the public square of a culture like that of the U.S., which is saturated with religion that is often downright demonic. For many of us who really want a viable alternative to demonic religion that has harmed us, and who welcome the persuasive critique of religion offered by our atheist or agnostic friends, the absolute, dogmatic certainty of those same friends places us between a rock and a hard place: it's the mirror image of the dogmatic religious demon from which we want to escape, in order to find safety. 

Derrick De Lise's Interview with Me — "Courageous Conversation with Bill Lindsey" — Now Published at Huffington Post: Why This Conversation Is Important

Several days ago, I shared with you a link to an interview that Derrick De Lise did with me, and published at his blog Inexorable Pilgrim. This is a quick footnote to my previous posting, to tell you that Derrick has now published the same interview, which he entitles "Courageous Conversation with Bill Lindsey," at Huffington Post.

Blogger Derrick De Lise Interviews Me at Inexorable Pilgrim About Living As a Gay Christian

I'm grateful to Derrick De Lise for publishing an interview with me at his Inexorable Pilgrim site yesterday. Derrick entitles his interview "Courageous Conversation with Bill Lindsey," and notes that the subject of our conversation (via email) was the challenge to be both openly gay and a person of faith.

"No One Leaves Home Unless Home Is the Mouth of a Shark": Krzysztof Charamsa on the "Unspeakable Suffering" Catholic Pastoral Leaders Inflict on LGBTI People

In his letter to the pope, Krzysztof Charamsa says that he came out of the closet after a long and tormented period of prayer and discernment because he can no longer tolerate "the violence of the Church towards homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and intersexual people." He states that, through its pastoral leaders, the Catholic church "persecutes" LGBTI human beings, causing them and their families "unspeakable suffering" and making their lives "hell."

Readers Write and I Respond: The Book Project

In what I just posted about Steve's and my religious transition right at present, I told you that I would also pick up the thread of previous discussions of a book I might write about the story of how our careers as Catholic theologians who happen to be gay were destroyed by Catholic pastoral leaders. I appreciate very much the encouragement of a number of you to me to write such a book, and your offers to help me as I do so.

Readers Write and I Respond: "The Whole Idea of Ordinary Church Gives Me the Hives" and "The Walls Are the Problem: They Enclose, Hamper, Restrict Conversations"

In what follows, I want to catch up on some "personal" sharing — to pick up threads of previous discussions that have been left dangling due to my lack of time to pick them up as we were traveling recently. I also want to tell you that I'll be away from blogging again for the coming two weeks. More about that in a moment . . . .

Saying Hello After Two Days of Travel, with Gratitude for Your Comments

I'm here, friends, fellow sojourners. I very much appreciate all of your comments in the past two days, and am sorry I haven't yet said that or replied to any of them. Steve and I have been away from home since Sunday, as he pursues business in the northwest corner of our state and I tag along to see the fall leaves begin to change and visit the spectacular Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art again. 

A Note of Thanks, with a Note Asking for Prayers/Supportive Thoughts/Holding a Friend in the Light

Before I forget: I want to issue a note of sincere thanks to Bob/tinywriting, for his assistance in reformatting the photo of me I've chosen to use as the header of this blog's homepage. This is a photo Steve took of me in May 2006 when we went on pilgrimage to the shrines of Walsingham in East Anglia and of St. David's in Wales, with stops at other holy places (including a monastery where friends of ours had arranged for us to stay with a gloriously kind group of Benedictine nuns) across southern England.

My Real Very Own Strange Shopping Adventure: An Epiphany Story

In one of my disspirited spells last fall, some of you provided helpful feedback indicating that you like to hear me speak from what poet Sharon Olds calls my "real spot." (Well, I don't mean to say that anyone used that phrase — no one did, as far as I can recall — but that was the gist of how I heard some of your suggestions.)

Theologian José Arregi on Synod on Family: Was It Worth It?

At her Iglesia Descalza site, Rebel Girl offers a translation of commentary on the synod on the family by Basque theologian José Arregi from the journal Redes Cristianas. Arregi frames what he has to say about the synod by noting that the Greek word we render as "synod" has the root meaning of "journeying together": as he states, 

Cracked Pots and Pilgrimages: The Parable of Filling in the Cracks

When I posted last week about my misgivings re: continuing this blog, I posted this photo at the head of my posting:

Back to Work? I Hear You Saying to Me, This Blog Is a "Breathing Hole in This World of a Hard-Frozen Pond"

As a new work week begins, I'm going to take a stab at summarizing some of what I think I have heard from your valuable, so much-appreciated response to my cri de coeur last week. A proviso: I still feel akimbo inside, a bit off-kilter spiritually, and I distrust myself when I'm in such a state. To be specific: I'm not sure that what I write when I'm akimbo is worth reading, and whether it does good or perhaps causes harm.

Gratitude: A Story from Our Recent Trip

Gratitude is the highest form of acceptance. Like patience, it is one of the catalytic agents, one of the alchemist's secrets, for turning dross to gold, hell to heaven, death to life (Stephen Levine, A Year to Live: How to Live This Year As If It Were Your Last [NY: Bell Tower, 1997).

Signposts on a Spiritual Journey: "It Is Such an Irony. The Holy Land Has Such a Long History of Being Drenched in Blood"

Photograph: Petri Storlöpare, www.slowlife.se

When we return from our trip of the last week, a postcard from our friends John and Andre is waiting for us. They're visiting the Holy Land.

We Go, We Return, We Fall Down, We Get Up: On Life Journeys As Spiritual Journeys

You were almost right, coolmom: though we didn't go to Minneapolis on our trip last week, it was definitely a Midwestern trek, from Fayetteville, Arkansas, to Kansas City and Independence, Missouri, and on to Dyersville, Iowa. And here's Waldo proof (in part): yours truly standing in front of a window at Crystal Bridges Museum last Wednesday, before we headed on to Kansas City. I have smiled and smiled as I read your "Where's Waldo?" proposal and hrh's stone tablets comment, and all the other precious and much-appreciated responses to my last posting. (I did encounter the stone tablets on this trip, hrh. But I suspect they conked me on the head as I walked up the mountain, and so I have no memory of having seen them.)

I'm Here: About My Recent Silence, and About Yesterday's Judicial Ruling in Arkansas Striking Down Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

I apologize for my silence in the past several days. Steve and I are away now on a short trip, and I haven't found much reflection time to permit me to blog in the past several days. This was one of those trips about which you don't think much, and then it comes barreling into your life, and everything else suddenly takes second-seat to the need to pack, meet a flight, and then pursue the business of the trip, which, in our case on this trip, has been all about attending lectures at the National Genealogical Society Conference in Richmond — another opportunity made possible for us by cashing in frequent-flyer miles.

In Case You're Interested, My Travel Diary from Our Trip to Italy Is Now Posted

Back in December, when I posted snippets here from my travel diary regarding our Christmas trip to Italy (here, here, here, here, and here), some of you kindly showed an interest in my meandering travel notes. And so I thought I'd let readers know that I've now transcribed my entire travel journal from the recent trip, and have posted it at my travel blog, Never in Paradise.

Rebecca Solnit on the Arc of Justice and the Long Run: "Everyone Has a Genealogy"

Rebecca Solnit's new essay at The Nation about the arc of justice and the long run is illuminating. She writes, 

A New Year's Offering from My Quotation Log, Over the Years

A new year's offering to all of you: these are snippets from books I've read over the years, and have recorded in a quotation log. I'll leave it to you to decide what binds all of these quotations together, other than my decision to turn them into first-of-year reflections. (Hint: look for a particular word.)

A very happy 2014 to all of you!