Because Truth Matters

Let’s get this straight from the very beginning.  I’m not planning to vote for Rick Santorum.  I disagree profoundly with most of his positions.  So the defense that follows has nothing to do with my personal political leanings.  It has to do instead with my passion for the truth, the same passion that leads me [...]

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Christians who AREN’T

So I’m taking my son and his girlfriend to the mall this morning, and find myself behind a car with the bumper sticker above.  Looks like a nice Christian sentiment, right?  Especially considering it was accompanied by one of those Christian fish symbols some people put on their cars (there was one on my late [...]

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Martin Luther King and Abortion

 This was, I believe, my last column for the East Tennessee Catholic, published right around this time last year.  Since I participated in the Martin Luther King Parade this morning and plan to March for Life next weekend, it seems like a good time to reprint it.  Our small delegation from Immaculate Conception’s Social Justice [...]

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Whose Judgment?

Here’s a column reprint from 2003, which I was inspired to run today by a Facebook post by my friend Amy Wilson (you can see her here) whom I have known since first grade.  She said:  “The difference between a flower and a weed is judgment.” It was a rare sunny day, and 9-year-old Jake, 2-year-old [...]

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Got baby?

Because I’m on vacation (where I envisioned I would have uninterrupted to hours to blog, but that isn’t happening) here is another column reprint for you: Billboards. They are everywhere in our town and in our state. Their unsightliness mars the beauty of rural roadsides, and adds to the ugliness of already overdeveloped commercial strips. [...]

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Can we talk . . . about abortion?

I have to tell you, I’m excited by the thoughtful responses engendered by my last post.  For one thing, as I happily blog away, it’s hard to know if I’m making any impression at all if no one responds.  For another, I have always been discouraged by the lack of opportunities for pro-life/pro-choice dialogue.   I’ve [...]

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It’s a baby, stupid: Why personhood is moot in the abortion debate

Time for another reprint from the ETC–yes, and I know, time for some NEW life issues writing; I have ideas, and I promise a new one is germinating.  This column appeared, I believe, in 2007. Anyone who has been really involved in the abortion debate for a long time has got to have realized that [...]

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Wishful thinking

Yesterday a Facebook friend was trying to convince others, via her status, that Pepsi was debuting a new can that included the whole Pledge of Allegiance except for the words “under God” (the HEATHENS!).  We were all supposed to put this in our statuses and NEVER EVER drink that devilish drink AGAIN! Now I know [...]

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Grace through suffering

This originally appeared in the East Tennessee Catholic about three and a half years ago.  It was late at night–later than a twelve-year-old should have been awake–when Jake discovered me crying in front of the computer. Like all children, he doesn’t like to see his mother cry, and he asked me what was wrong. I [...]

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Pro-life, or Anti-Abortion?

This is a reprint of my very first column.  Although it appeared in late 2001, I had actually written it over two years before, as one of three sample columns which were rejected by the then-editor of the East Tennessee Catholic.  What does it mean to have a “consistent life ethic?” You may remember that as [...]

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