Columnist.
In the Book of Lamentations, written about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 B.C., you can find heartbreaking descriptions of loss and grief, betrayal and absolute despair.
"I intended to be anything but Catholic," Dawn Eden Goldstein remembers. She grew up in a Reform Jewish household but "fell into agnosticism" in her late teens, later becoming a rock-music historian in New York City. In 1999, she says she "encountered the love of Jesus Christ" and became a nondenominational Christian.
"I cannot let my selfishness stand in the way of your whole well-being."
Have you seen the Nature Valley (the granola bar people) ad out of Canada? It has been making the social-media rounds lately, because it seems to capture something that is well within our power to fix.
"Adoption is a beautiful thing. But it is also a terrifying thing. It is a maddening thing. It is a mystifying thing." Emily Stimpson Chapman was writing about the woman who would make her dream of being a mother come true.
The mother of a gaggle of adult children was talking about the hard realities of watching a child walk away from your family's values, including its faith.
Mona Charen had me hooked at the dedication of her latest book. It's to her husband, and it comes from the Song of Solomon: "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."
At the same time that she was caring for her newborn son, Kristen Hanson was caring for her husband, James Joseph, who would die shortly after Christmas of last year.
Comedians making jokes about getting your abortions now, before the Supreme Court abolishes Roe v. Wade. Emojis indicating a woman won't have sex with a man who is anti-abortion. Headline declarations that "There's A Special Place In Hell For Women Who Gut Abortion Rights." Such has been the digital deluge after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court.
We don't need hot weather to keep things overheated in response to Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement from the Supreme Court. It's a potential political apocalypse or triumph, depending on which press release you're reading. The level of emotion betrays how the Court has become as overly politicized as just about everything else in American life. And the focal point of so much of the furor is abortion.
"The problem is not that we disagree, but that our disagreements have become so callous, emotional and inconsiderate," wrote Michael Wear in his book Reclaiming Hope. Wear used to work for President Obama on faith-based and neighborhood partnerships.
"President Trump has diligently and successfully gone about fulfilling his promises to the pro-life voters who worked so hard to elect him, and it has been a privilege to stand with him to defend the innocent unborn," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, at the group's annual dinner about a month ago.
I spent the better part of last week at a conference at Georgetown University dedicated to overcoming polarization. We didn't achieve that goal. But we sure walked out of there knowing some new people and perspectives.
May was National Foster Care Month, and I spent some of the month talking with foster parents about their lives, challenges, hopes and dreams for the little ones who have spent time in their homes.
Sometimes a name reveals more than you realize at first glance. "My father, Bill Foster, was a real foster child," Serrin Foster explains. "He experienced both the best and the worst of foster care. Horrifically and brutally treated by some, he was later placed with a loving couple and stayed with them for the rest of his life. ... The good couple who took him in for the rest of his life would find food under his pillow after he had fallen asleep because he was so terrified about where he would find his next meal."
Adoption and foster care must be the priority of anyone who considers themselves pro-life.
Commentary pages recently have been debating an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York that opened with a star-studded gala that included Rihanna dressed as a pope, bearing a miter that may or may not have been loaned to her by Cardinal Dolan.
"I was sorry to see the Mooch and Spicer killed off so quickly, but I really think the introduction of Rudy's character is going to breathe new life into the show," commented a friend on Facebook the other day. "Kudos to the producers for keeping things so fresh."
Rob describes himself as a "super pro-life guy."
Everything seems to become at once deeper and lighter from the moment you sit down in the Theatre at St. Clement's Episcopal Church for the off-Broadway production of "Babette's Feast."
