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Month: February 2012

Help Me Get This Sadness Out My House. A Story About Rubber Gloves and Grace.

Published February 28, 2012 by Doug, the patient.
Help Me Get This Sadness Out My House. A Story About Rubber Gloves and Grace.

Years ago I got caught in a pretty debilitating depression.  I let things snowball to a point I felt I had little or no refuge left. Every part of life looked bleak including my own bedroom.     On weekends I would lie in bed all day and look at piles of laundry, fast food wrappers, stacks of unopened bills and just junk.   Blech.  It literally made it hard to get out of bed in the morning (or sometimes in the afternoon). One could sprain an ankle on the way to the bathroom.  At one point it became difficult for me to imagine that the room would ever be clean. I would lie in bed and pray, “please, someone come and get this sadness out my house.”  To my great surprise, one time, someone did.

Continue ReadingHelp Me Get This Sadness Out My House. A Story About Rubber Gloves and Grace.

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Ashes, Ashes. We all Fall Down.

Published February 23, 2012 by Doug, the patient.

For some time it has been rumored that the children’s rhyme, “Ring around the Rosie,” was a creepy rhyme born during the era of the Black Plague.   That may be more the stuff of legend than of history, but it also makes a little sense.   For when faced when imminent and pervasive death, humans, and children in particular, have interesting ways of coping.    These little mechanisms also shine  a little light on why it is such good news to have an Ash Wednesday to take pervasive death and darkness and turn it on its head.

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St. Benedict goes to Burning Man.

Published February 20, 2012 by Doug Harrison

What do Benedictines have to do with Burning Man?.   Well, not much.   It is a Ven diagram with very little overlap ( I think I’ll wear my leopard skin habit with the blinky hood? #notsomuch).  But there is a reason I live happily wedged between these two very self-conscious groups of trouble makers.  And as we tip-toe across these last few hours of ordinary time and into a new season (meaning different things to each community) I have been compelled to really reflect on what is happening in my life because I how I live with these people and all of their, well, religious practices.

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How to be a Valentine: A Note on Martyrdom.

Published February 14, 2012 by Doug Harrison

Today is a feast, a gift and remembrance, of an occasion I have yet see Hallmark really nail with one of its watercolored limericks:  there once was a man so in love with God that he was beheaded for performing marriages in opposition to war.   In defense of hallmark, that is a very hard picture to paint with water colors…

In the third century, Emperor Claudius had declared marriage illegal in order to encourage more young men to volunteer to be soldiers.  Valentine, a celibate priest, opposed both the aggressive violence of the empire as well as the notion that the state alone held the reins of marriage.   The priest knew how central marriage is to the life of the Church and couldn’t stop marrying people just because Claudius had other plans.

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This is How I Am Pro-Life. Now may I please have that phrase back?

Published February 8, 2012 by Doug Harrison

I hope the way I live with children celebrates their lives.
I hope men and women keep loving and enjoying each other and having more kids.
I hope those kids know I love them even before conception.
I hope I create community so no one in my life feels like a ‘single’ parent.
I hope I honor my father’s memory and love him after death.
I hope the women in my life know I think their breasts can be life giving miracles as well as something others desire.
I hope I help women love their own breasts and bodies as desirable miracles.

Continue ReadingThis is How I Am Pro-Life. Now may I please have that phrase back?

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