If I asked you today, “What are your thoughts on death?,” I imagine your answer might well be colored by your recent personal experiences.  It’s hardly a neutral question, and certainly any thoughts and feelings we might have about death on any given day relate in no small part to the current state of our…… Continue reading When Death Comes: Oliver Sacks, Mary Oliver, and Walt Whitman

I just finished reviewing Margaret Miles’s new book Beyond the Centaur:  Imagining the Intelligent Body. The main argument of the book is that for the vast majority of Western history, the human being has been viewed as a composite of various parts, “two (or more) assembled, stuck together, hierarchically arranged components, usually body and mind…… Continue reading Moving Beyond the Centaur "Inside Out"

I’ve been working on a presentation I’m giving this August at a conference in California–it’s on subjectivity and women in Shin Buddhism.  The research has been really interesting, in no small part because there are parallels between the way women have been viewed in Buddhism & the way they have been viewed in Christianity.  Need…… Continue reading Claiming our own Gaze & Getting out of the Cage

I just posted this on the Dialog Facebook page, really in response to a wonderful conversation I had with my friend Lauren this morning.  For those of you who don’t look at that page….I want to respond briefly [insofar as a theologian can ever respond to something briefly!] to Rob Saler’s post about the epidemic…… Continue reading God IS "troubling the waters"–what are we going to do about it?

It has been strange being in Sweden & hearing about the shooting in Charleston, and the death of a pastor John knew well from Southern.  It’s hard to know how to explain this to our Swedish cousins–and frankly, I’m tired of it:  it feels like it has been an especially bad year for crimes against…… Continue reading "Justice for all just ain’t specific enough"

I had told myself that I wasn’t going to weigh in on the Caitlyn Jenner story:  I felt that there has been enough said, and plus, I really try to avoid anything that has to do with the Kardashian family–I have a negative visceral reaction [I was going to say “loathing” but that felt harsh….] to that…… Continue reading What Makes a Woman? Abby Wambach and Caitlyn Jenner

I’ve started listening to “The Writer’s Almanac” podcast first thing every morning [find it here:  The Writer’s Almanac]–I love hearing about events from this day in history, and also getting a poem every day.  I highly recommend it!Anyway, today Garrison Keillor talked about the anniversary of two different battles: Dunkirk and Midway.  Here’s a brief…… Continue reading Life, Luck and What We Do with It

So, continuing the “entertainment and women” theme from my last post, my friend Rob & I had a little exchange on Facebook, talking about “Mad Max.”  We decided to write a couple editorials about it on the Dialog Facebook page.  This is the one I’m posting there–but I’m publishing it here, too.For the sake of…… Continue reading "Mad Max: Fury Road"–a Feminist Movie

I confess to being a big lover of action movies–I got hooked on Jean Claude Van Damme in high school and never looked back.  However, I recognize one of the inherent problems in the genre itself is the way women often are portrayed: “Jinx”  [Halle Berry] might well have been a very different Bond girl…… Continue reading "Game of Thrones" and Violence against Women

As part of my Seminary’s Anti-Racism Workshop this year, we invited the students [and the whole community] to read The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander; and boy, I’m glad we did!  I hadn’t read it before, and if you haven’t read it yet, put down this blog and go start reading it right now:  it’s eye-opening, thought-provoking, frustrating,…… Continue reading The New Jim Crow: Race and Theology