On (My) Writing…

I want to let you know – if you don’t already – that I’ve a regular column at Patheos now. I’m posting there twice monthly, second Wednesdays on spirituality and fourth Wednesdays for a study group on mass incarceration in the U.S.

My latest Patheos column is on Honoring the Gods. Here is an excerpt:

Feri Priest Anaar sometimes speaks of the need to court deity. How do we do that?We get to know them. Make a space for them. We look at how we conduct our other relationships – is that how we want to conduct a relationship with a God? If it isn’t, we may wish to work on that, too. Do we want to invite a Goddess to a dirty, ill used altar, or a bedroom piled with dust and old underwear? We can clean the altar. Change the sheets. Make a pleasant space. In relationship, sometimes things are hard and the housekeeping goes downhill. Friends and lovers understand. But if there is never an effort made to clean up our lives, they notice that as well.The lives we have are an offering. The lives we create can be an even more fit offering. Relationships are about both “as we are” and “as we are becoming.” When we honor ourselves, we honor our friends – and vice versa. When we honor ourselves and our friends, we honor the Gods.

I’ve also launched a new website for my experiments in fiction. As a challenge to myself, I’m writing one short story a week, and posting them at Thorn Writes.

Here’s one paragraph from last week’s short story, “Our Lady of the Knife”:

He knew how it got because sometimes the Gods and Goddesses were too big for his head to handle. He would be rocking on the patterned rug in the altar room, trying to breathe as they spun through his body, cracking open the back of his skull. Once, Paco had found him there, whispering nonsense syllables and tracing the pattern on the carpet with his hands. The silver square at the base of his skull was white hot. Paco had poured blessed water over it before wrapping his fingers in a shawl to slide it off, and loosening Henry’s braid. Sometimes the Gods used Henry. It seemed like a fair trade off. He had been known to use them, too.

I hope you enjoy the articles and stories!

Blessed be.

#writing