The Meaning of Life and Other Minor Details: Practicing Mindfulness After Fifty

My paper at the 2017 South Eastern Women's Studies (SEWSA) Conference is Intentional Monogamy in the Age of Tinder: Queer Theology and Re-thinking Christian Sexual Ethics . That one title contains at least four ideas for an academic paper~~and here in one place I'm going to try to pull them together to look again at a concept that we take so much for granted we do it without thinking. Monogamy. I've begun framing my academic research over the last four years with theology; I even did a stint at the Candler School of Theology at Emory. For example, I believe that Dietrich Bonhoeffer's notion of ethics and existentialist theologian Paul Tillich's conceptualization of God and "the" Christ are not just relevant our world today, they are essential. They are my starting point; from them I move to Feminist Theology and Queer Theology, which are topics for another day. Just know that theology~as I define it the search for the nature of God~in its various persp...

Sarah and I have recently taken to binge watching The West Wing . She'd never seen the entire series; I had, but after this presidential election, I wanted to watch it again. That doesn't really capture it. I felt compelled to watch it again. Even during the presidential debates, I started getting the feeling that in some way reality was slipping away from me and my country. Here was the heir apparent, the presumptive winner of the whole shebang, Hillary Clinton. She looked like a president; she talked like a president; she had all the experience and credentials one (well, a democrat one) would expect and hope for in a president. She appeared in debates with Nondescript White Guy and Bernie Sanders, a socialist senator from Vermont. A socialist senator from Vermont???  But, Bernie kept her--and us--honest.  I never for one minute thought he was electable, but we need politicians like Bernie Sanders to influence the Democrat platform toward equity and access. On the Republic...

You make your plans, and God laughs. That's what happened to me over the weekend. Let me go back, though, and start with discovering the Atlanta Freedom Bands, which I wrote about here in November 2014. I recollected how finding the band made me realize how much I had missed making music, marching in parades, performing in concerts. How after more than 30 years, finding the AFB was like discovering a new, yet long lost treasure. Last year, I marched my first season of parades in various Atlanta community festivals. It was wondrous. And at Christmas, I performed in my first concert playing French Horn in 35 years. Last Saturday morning, I marched mellophone with the AFB in the Atlanta St. Patrick's Day parade. Afterwards, members of the band had lunch and drinks and fellowship at a local restaurant, which is the custom with this group. Saturday night, kept waking up with what felt like a neck cramp. When I woke up early Sunday my speech was slurred, which I chalk up to needing...

On X-Men and Orlando I've been making my family watch a lot of X-men movies this week, as a kind of research project for the new X-Men: Apocalypse . One of the themes throughout all the movies is good versus evil (another theme, especially in X-Men: The Last Stand , is marginalization of people because of their mutation--a clear parallel to homophobia and reparative therapy often forced upon LGB people--but that is another story...). For example, there are good mutants and evil mutants, good humans and evil humans. Sometimes, the evil forces come out on top. But sometimes, Professor X, Charles Xavier, gets through to them. "Don't do this," he persuades telepathically. " It isn't who you are ." Occasionally, he gets through, even to Magneto. Evil is among us. Whatever prompts us to reject our ethical thinking toward one another by supporting unregulated weapons purchases, or failing to commit meaningful resources to domestic violence and mental illness, o...

Last night, we sat in front of the television and watched the announcement of the Grand Jury decision from Ferguson, Missouri. From the time the broadcast started, there was a split screen, one camera on the crowd and another on the DA who was reading the lengthy statement. For a while, we watched the people straining to hear what he was saying on their radios and phones. Then, when he got to the point and announced that the Grand Jury had voted not to indict the white policeman who shot Michael Brown, we watched the people process the information, at first in stunned silence. Then the protests started. Even as I write that, just like the camera crews, I realize was expecting them to begin almost on cue. We were waiting. So, I watched them start up, then heat up, and Sarah tracked them all over the country on Twitter. Then, at around 11:00, we called it a night. That, friends, is one example of what is known as White Privilege. I had built my evening tv viewing around the press c...

When I was in fifth grade at Littleville Elementary School, something magical happened. One day, our teacher announced that the band teacher from the nearby high school would be coming to Littleville to talk to kids and their parents about joining the band. It was 1973, and resources for extra-curricular activities--heck, resources for curricular activities--were limited. I remember in previous years, our musical exposure at school had been the on the rare occasions when our teachers had brought out a box with mostly percussion instruments and let us play with them, mostly trying to keep time while a record was playing. This was different. This was band. I could hardly wait for the meeting. When the evening came, the band director, Mr. Wright, brought a variety of instruments so that we could try them out and, with his advise make our selection. I realize looking back that, of course, he wanted a well rounded group of instruments, which is probably why I became a flute player. From tha...

First of all, let's just get it out there: there IS a gay agenda. Sort of. But it's probably not what you're thinking. When anti-gay people speak of a "Gay Agenda," they make up some items to maintain the politics of fear that have proven successful. Gays getting married. Gays having children. Gays in schools. Gays in the military. Gays in the workplace. Gays in church. Gays in the government. Gays parading. Gays everywhere. Wait. No, that's not scary enough, not to mention that it's already the case. Gays converting your children. Gays converting YOU. Gays in YOUR church. Gays being treated like they are normal, even when everybody-knows-what-they-do-in-bed. Gays running sex dens and converting you and your children as you are mesmerized by sequins and disco music. None of that is my gay agenda, neither the real nor the absurd, nor the in-between spaces where sexuality, gender, and everyday life interact fluidly and contingently. FOX News is making stuff ...