The tip jar is linked in this post. December was very expensive and we've got to get through January when all kinds of huge bills are due and I'm already nervous. So, this would be a great time to leave me a tip for my writing! Thanks, more coming soon! www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

White supremacists like Miller want to take the country back to an imaginary time when America was really America, without all these nasty Black and Brown foreigners from different cultures mucking it up. But that time doesn’t exist, and neither do those people. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I’ll bet there are dozens, if not hundreds of people who call Suzanne “the nicest lady I’ve ever met.” Suzanne was the opposite of me in many ways: bright, cheerful, extroverted, not at all awkward to talk to. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

To believe in the Incarnation, is to believe that everything and everyone in history is sacred. To profess the Incarnation is to profess that God became Man so that Man might become God, and that means that everything that happens to Man is a godly thing. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I must have been almost as far south as Martin’s Ferry when I gave up and made a u-turn in some farmer’s driveway. Eventually, I found Route Seven. Evening fell in that cold, bright, November way, sending golden rays across the whole sky. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

Instantly, it was not only cool but cold. The little bit of breeze that had been tickling those sycamore trees became an irritating wind in the tunnel. I hugged my jacket close to me, but it didn’t help much. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

Before that, long before, the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia were part of the Central Pangean Mountains. Those mountains were full of peat swamps, which is why this part of America is made of coal– coal is the carbon left over when peat is buried for eons. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The kitten cowered in the shadow of a neighbor’s concrete step, still mewing, sightless face turned in my direction. “Can I take her to MY house?” asked Jimmy’s boy. “My mom wants a black cat.” www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The camera turned for a moment, to show a great black cloud rolling down the street like a living thing. Jimmy’s boy laughed with excitement: again, to him, this was a movie and not real life. He was excited at the sight of the dust cloud. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The city at the bottom of the cliff was still bright, still lit up with stoplights and street lights and lights in the windows, much brighter than the dim stars overhead. Is this what God sees? When God looks down on Heaven and Earth, does God see the stars below? www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

Just as I fell over, he came around the front, smiling. “I have good news!” “What is it?” I groaned, holding my head. “You have another butternut.” www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I think this demonstrates a misunderstanding about what discipline actually is. Discipline is teaching.The word “discipline” comes from the same root word as “disciple.” It’s “discere,” a verb meaning “to learn.” A student, in Latin, is a “discipulus,” one who learns. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

Above me was the firmament, blue going pink at sunset, with the night closing in. Above the firmament were all kinds of things I couldn’t understand, like Omniscience, Omnipotence, Immutability, Trinity, the Beatific Vision... www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

Shale is a noisy rock, easily shattered, that is stacked in layers like a tower of crêpes. In the spring thaws or after a bad storm, some of that shale gives way. It goes clattering onto the southbound lane or slips out from under the northbound lane into the Ohio... www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I felt exposed, humiliated, as if a real literature scholar would burst into my bedroom and taunt me for being a pathetic fake with only a bachelor’s degree and a terribly small library. And I missed my set of Charles Dickens. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I went to bed with my heart pounding in my ears. I haven’t cried yet. I want to cry, but I can’t. I feel as if I’ll never cry again. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I was resting beside the bones of three human beings who ate the meat of stegodons and carved petroglyphs in the shale rock, thousands of years before there was such a thing as West Virginia at all. Somehow I made my way back down. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

“No, you didn’t,” I said, gritting my teeth. “You didn’t see her do that.” “Yes I did!” “You didn’t. Because that little girl was in the hospital.” The Sylph’s smile dropped just a little. “When?” www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The Mandrake came to watch the cartoon as well. She asked to be covered in a blanket, and laid her head on my arm. “She always treats everyone like her mother,” said the Sylph. Again, I feared. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The federal budget is our money– not my money that was stolen from me and your money that was stolen from you, but OUR money, pooled from a bit of each of our incomes, so that we can fund the country we all share. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The cat “came down,” in the most ungraceful way I’ve ever seen. There was one leonine bound, and then a crash as she broke the sapling and went tumbling under the cedar bushes. A moment later she was out of the bushes and scurrying up to me, an ungodly muddy mess. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

“Put the bird in my hand,” I demanded. “Why?” asked the eldest Dodger. “Because animal cruelty is illegal, and you don’t want it on your permanent record.” That was the right answer. She surrendered at once. The starling slid into my left palm. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I know that the Church is not my mother, or my father. She is something else. She hates me, and ruined me, and I am terrified of her. But part of the way I’ve met Christ has been through the Church. Part of the mystery of who I am, is that I am a Catholic. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The windows upstairs, which have thick clear plastic stapled over them for drafts on the old shrunken frames, slammed whump whump whump whump, rhythmic like a bass drum. Outside there was a crashing noise from the bowels of hell, and it was black as night. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

“Who lives in that house?” asked the girl. “Nobody. Miss Kim died, and I don’t know who owns the place now. Probably the bank.” “The bank owns our house!” said the girl cheerfully. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

"On your mark, get set, GO!” And then the miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes happened, because the children were pleased to share and help one another. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I was next to one of those warm green hollows when I realized it was three o’clock, and got on my knees. Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani? It is consummated. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The children, who are miscellaneous American Protestants and go to the non-denominational church on the next block, nodded in agreement. “Jesus is going to rise from the dead on Sunday,” said the little girl Dodger, the one who thinks Jesus lives on the moon. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I thought an animal who’d just been subjected to a trap and a major surgery would be panicked and vicious, ready to bite. But all Charlie wanted was some company. She curled up on my lap and stretched out her feet– claws in, claws out, claws in. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I wanted to be a saint more than anything in the world, and it hurt like hell when his personality cult was exposed for what it was. I realized those were the words of a con artist and not a holy man. And that meant that maybe God didn’t really loved me. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

We learned the lyrics and the dances to some old Shaker hymns. I taught them to follow me around in a circle with their arms out and palms up, and to bow and bend and turn on their heel while singing “Simple Gifts.” www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

“What kind of cake are you getting?” I asked, thinking he’d say “chocolate." “Sponge Bob!” said Jimmy’s boy. We went around the back, where I produced two little packets of pea seeds. “It’s time to plant the spring garden. Birthday boy gets the bigger pack!” www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

Can you remember what it’s like to receive things, as a child? Can you go back to when you were little before it all went wrong? No, further. To before the time you were first ashamed to be a child. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I once read a blind person describe what it was like when her father held up a beach ball on a bright sunny day and turned it so the colors caught the light. The blind girl could see that. She saw a blur of red, a blur of blue, a blur of yellow. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I want to be a primary source for future historians: not for battles or bombings or the doings of important men, but of traumatized people in a traumatized neighborhood at the junction where the Rust Belt collides with Northern Appalachia. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

This is my prayer life, lately: asking Jesus to come with me on a hike, or a drive, or out to the backyard to turn over the compost heap. Sometimes I talk to him and sometimes he just stands there while I think about something else. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

What’s supposed to happen when a stranger gets in your backseat? A scene from a movie, where the stranger pulls a weapon? Or something out of a pratfall comedy where the trusting autistic lady looks away from her purse for a second and the stranger swipes her wallet? www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

Sometimes the dampness freezes and sometimes it thaws, but whatever it does, there’s no color at all. It wouldn’t be enough to become an atheist on a day like this, after news like that. You’d have to believe in God, and believe He was a tyrant. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

When I was a little girl, I didn’t know whether to say that I liked history or not. I didn’t like to memorize names and dates. . But I liked to hear about how people lived. I wanted to know what clothes they wore, and whether they got gifts at Christmas. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The cross is heavy. It’s ugly. It’s inconvenient. The cross, when borne correctly, gets you thrown out of polite company. It makes you a pariah to your family. It makes you no addition to a party. It places upon you an obligation that the world abhors. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The garden is one long white sheet of snow, with no way to distinguish it from the yard. Surely there isn’t fertile soil under there. Surely you can’t grow crops on a frozen planet like this. Surely the enormous sunflowers I remember from six months ago were a dream. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

If God is truly the Being the greater of which cannot be imagined, then He can’t possibly be more petty and cruel than my imaginary vision of Heaven. He can only be better still. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

Before me, the sun shone so brightly on the middle of the lake that it hurt to look at. Beyond that, on the far shore, the forest rose up drab brown. Above the brown was the blue of the firmament. Above the firmament was God. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

“Children, if you are tired, keep going; if you are scared, keep going; if you are hungry, keep going; if you want to taste freedom, keep going.” ~Attributed to Harriet Tubman. Image: Harriet Tubman, ca. 1871-1876. Public domain image.

I know this will be dangerous and not fun. But I love storms, so I wish I could drive the two hours to Marblehead and batten myself down in the old Hotel Lakeside my siblings and I pretended was haunted when I was a girl and spend the night watching the storm on the lake.

Also, you usually cook it before you put it on the table!

I got the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT, you guys. The very best. I love those crunchy tinned butter cookies that you hope aren't sewing supplies, but my gluten sensitivity and PCOS does not. ChocZero makes a gluten free keto version! In a blue tin and everything!

There’s a betting market on whether JD Vance will be excommunicated from the Catholic Church during Trump’s term.

Putin, again dressed in military uniform, said he plans to continue the war because “the heads of the Ukraine regime are not in a hurry to solve this conflict with peaceful means."