by Irim Sarwar Hi, I’m Irim, I’m new here, and I’ll be writing a column every other week. My spiritual patchwork quilt life will emerge through the columns, so I won’t bore you with it here, but you might look at the title and go, ‘Cthulhu’s tentacles, where did that weirdness come from?’ Well, whenContinue reading “Talking to Dust…erm, ok. Why?”
Author Archives: Marybeth Bishop
Dark Devotional: Chasing the Lost Sheep
by Michelle Arnold Gospel for September 11, 2022Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? (Luke 15:4). Converts have been on my mind in recent weeks. WhenContinue reading “Dark Devotional: Chasing the Lost Sheep“
Dark Devotional: Kindness Is Next to Godliness
by Michelle Arnold May your kindness, O Lord, be upon us who have put our hope in you (Ps. 33:22). During the years I worked as a professional apologist, I occasionally ran across mention of David Bawden, who died this past Tuesday—usually as a punchline in jokes about the papacy. After John Paul II died,Continue reading “Dark Devotional: Kindness Is Next to Godliness“
The Erasure of Mary the Tower
I am Mary. As a child I hated the name. In our Catholic circles, it was faster to point to the girls not named Mary, and in non-Catholic spaces I constantly heard, “Oh, you’re Mary? Like the virgin?” In those young years, anything even tangentially related to sex was embarrassing, so this taunt immediately madeContinue reading “The Erasure of Mary the Tower”
Dark Devotional: Except By the Holy Spirit
by Michelle Arnold No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). “Grandma, have you ever been baptized?” My grandmother looked up from her magazine, and gave me a puzzled look. “I don’t know. Why?” I persisted. “You mentioned once that you were raised Methodist but sent your kidsContinue reading “Dark Devotional: Except By the Holy Spirit”
Dark Devotional: The Sky Has Fallen
by Michelle Arnold First New Testament Reading for May 29, 2022The Ascension of the Lord Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? (Acts 1:11) After what seemed, to me anyway, to be a respite from news of gun violence in America (if I’m wrong about this, don’t correct me), we’veContinue reading “Dark Devotional: The Sky Has Fallen”
Dark Devotional: Blinded by the Blood of the Lamb
By Michelle Arnold One of the elders said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14). A religious lay brother once told me something I’ve never forgotten. He had worked for manyContinue reading “Dark Devotional: Blinded by the Blood of the Lamb”
Dark Devotional: When You Grow Old
by Michelle Arnold When you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted (John 21:18). I turned fifty years old in January, but hadn’t started feeling my age until I started a new job. It took eighteen months to find a new job. There were a number of factors at playContinue reading “Dark Devotional: When You Grow Old”
Lent: Cleaning the Windows of Our Souls with Art
By David Russell Mosley Lent is often looked at as a dark time. And rightly so. Dust we are and to dust we shall return. And yet, Lent is a time, at least for us in the Northern Hemisphere for new life. The word itself, lent, comes from Anglo-Saxon and means lengthening, pointing to theContinue reading “Lent: Cleaning the Windows of Our Souls with Art”
The Brood: My Last, Best Boyfriend
By Theresa Weiler I have been single for a while now, but it wasn’t long ago that I was in a fairly long-term thing. It was one of those relationships where you’ve known each other for your whole lives, flirting at family events, having long late night talks and intense arguments, drifting apart for monthsContinue reading “The Brood: My Last, Best Boyfriend”
Sick Pilgrim 