The fairy tale pushed by bedtime stories, Disney movies, and traditional values in general is that we grow up, find that special someone, marry, and have...
Parenting
I was standing in the middle of a small frozen lake near our house, chatting with my husband and Nate, another father in our neighborhood. I was in ice skates...
Religious horror is a film genre in its own right, and Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist are among my all-time favorites. But even horror movies that aren’t...
Most New Year’s resolutions are personal. Whether it’s trying to lose weight, exercise more, get a new job, or get better grades in school, our resolutions...
The mother lay prostrate on the table, her arms splayed out cruciform. We taped them down, stood on two sides of her, unfurling the surgical drapes across her...
This year I did something I swore I would never do: I ditched the parish pledge envelopes and signed up for automatic deduction. For years I had been committed...
My aunt has no children, and my mother has only me, and this has been their shared sorrow and their shame. In their world, to have so few children is a mark of...
In the middle of June, on a bright, hot, green, snow-is-the-furthest-thing-from-my-mind day, my middle daughter looked across the breakfast table and asked...
In 2012, for baptism preparation, my husband and I brought our 3-month-old son down to a musty church basement where a nun played us a 20-year-old religious...
One day as we were walking home from kindergarten, my 5-year-old daughter sighed loudly as a plastic bag blew past her feet on the sidewalk. “What is it?” I...
