I’m confused and frightened by evil. I’ve seen it at close quarters. I grew up around it. I’ve lost people I loved to it. And yet, I still don’t understand evil, and to combat it, I think we must first understand it. I’ve been thinking about these issues a lot lately, and at some point I will explore them in depth in a book tentatively titled, Alien Enlightenment. For now, I want to ask a few questions. Evil. What is [...]
It’s low-lying fruit, and everyone else is wailing away at it like little kids swatting at a stuffed piñata, but I’m going to jump into the latest misogynistic controversy involving Missouri Rep. Todd Akin. The Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, Akin justified his opposition to abortion rights for victims of “legitimate rape” on the grounds that these victims have unnamed biological defenses that prevent pregnancy. Not wanting to be accused of exaggerating, I’ll let Akin speak in his own [...]
I looked up when I heard the angry tone. I searched the faces in the crowded classroom. Who was she talking to? Why are they staring at me? The more she said, the more they stared at me. Like a confused, sleeping child hunting for a lamp in the dark of night, I looked for someone’s hand to grab but the only thing I could find was my desk, so I held on so tight my fingers hurt. I was [...]
I don’t talk or write much about religion because it confuses me. I am not an atheist or an agnostic. I am not a Catholic or a Methodist. I am not a Baptist or a Buddhist. But I do believe in God. I try to be true to my beliefs, whatever they are on a given day. In my tentatively titled, upcoming novel, Ripple, one of my main characters is a mother whose daughter was raped. After she takes matters [...]
What if Santa is a woman? What if the idiotic Elf on the Shelf is a girl named Julie instead of a boy named Jack? What if Mary Magdalene was the 13th Apostle? Sigh, I apologize for this last question, I really do, but I can’t help it: what if God is a Goddess? Did I start asking these questions this morning? No, of course not. I raised my hand in Honors Comparative Religion and asked a few questions [...]