interfaith

Filed under: Regular Contributors, David Roche

Screengrab of David Roche’s upcoming schedule:

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Quoting David Roche, in an email sent Wednesday, Apr 8, 2009:

“Attached is a piece I am working on that I think will be the opening act of “Catholic Erotica.” It is a performance piece, doesn’t have to do with disability as such, but is written (and will be performed) from the POV of a pre-pubescent Catholic boy in the American Midwest in the 1950s. It is something I like and which works well on stage . . . It’s in the front of my mind and imagination because I am working on it right now.”

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A racy script excerpt…after the jump!

***Warning: Language & themes not suitable for children***

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Filed under: Uncategorized

Quoting The Wall Street Journal:

Churches, synagogues, mosques and temples are places where people with disabilities might not expect to feel excluded, isolated or patronized. Yet that has often been the norm. For years congregations have effectively excluded the disabled from worship—by steps, narrow doorways and straitened attitudes—or segregated them in “special” services. Houses of worship (except those with more than 15 employees) were excluded from the 1992 Americans with Disabilities Act, which, among other things, bars discrimination against people with physical or intellectual disabilities—including access and architectural barriers—in public accommodations and transportation.

…there are also some potential benefits for congregations that are willing to make the investment in architecture and attitude in order to become more welcoming. Mainline congregations with declining memberships, for example, would have much to gain. More families with a disabled member would attend religious services, experts say, if congregations would make efforts to open their buildings and programs. Older people tend to attend services in greater numbers than the young. The good news is that some churches, synagogues, mosques and temples are already getting ready for the coming influx of the disabled, tapping technology and simple thoughtfulness to reach out in creative ways to this faith-hungry community: At Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Norfolk, Va., priest Joe Metzger instructs an 11-year-old autistic girl in an empty sanctuary, while wearing vestments, so she’ll feel at ease making her First Communion. At Bet Shalom Congregation in Minnetonka, Minn., no sanctuary steps lead to the pulpit; congregants approach it using a long ramp, symbolizing that all people come to the Torah equally. At St. John’s Episcopal Church, in Charlotte, N.C., and St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Exton, Pa., adult members with Down Syndrome serve as altar servers, “greeters” and Sunday morning ushers. As these examples suggest, it takes more than just automatic door openers, large-print Bibles and improved signage to make a congregation disability-friendly.

Read the entire article on wsj.com >>

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Filed under: Themes, Tumour Humour

by Rabbi Marc Wilson

AKA “Rabbi Rugless”

Dear Folks:

So sorry for this mass request, but it’s for a good cause.

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Filed under: Themes, The UpDown Report

Recipes for the Bipolar Palate

by Rabbi Marc Wilson

AKA “Rabbi Ribeye”

AKA “Rabbiner von Beefsteak”

Have you already figured out that I am as bipolar as a rubber band? When I am up, I am a hyena. When I am down, I make Hamlet look like Jerry Lewis. Thank God for leading-edge medication, an understanding therapist, and a loving and ever-patient wife.

You probably do not know that I am Click to continue »

Filed under: Themes, Bum Deal, Irked Videos, Campaign Watch

By about ten this morning, outside the Click to continue »

Filed under: Regular Contributors, David Roche, Themes, Bum Deal, Books & Book Reviews 

Take This Bread

by Sara Miles

Reviewed by David Roche

David Roche on Take This Bread:

—Sara Miles is a storyteller, and her story, written in a tight, wonderfully readable style that she honed in her reporting years, is about food . . . Yes, this book is good enough to eat.

—She nails a core aspect of New Age spirituality when she describes it as “spongy”.

—Her prayers are not words but actions.

—She is not saintly. She can be testy, edgy, judgmental, with a touch of arrogance. But that’s the way prophets are supposed to be. Miles’ conversion is a flawed floundering.

—Her descriptions of the food pantry scene and its human communion are vivid, at times heartbreaking, but always respectful. 

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Filed under: Themes, Bum Deal, Books & Book Reviews

*February 2006: For the past five months I have been living alone in a car at the edge of the woods—jobless and homeless and totally unable to find a way out of it. I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I can’t scream loudly enough. All I can do is write. So here I am laying down tracks…hopefully the start of an online paper trail out of here.

The cold war

(from the author of Abandoned: The True Story of a Little Girl Who Didn’t Belong)

by Anya Peters

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Filed under: Themes, The UpDown Report

Cuff links for sale – a Rabbi’s tale

by Rabbi Marc Wilson

Please spare me the bromides about “Clergy are people, too” or “Being a rabbi would make anyone crazy.” This rabbi nearly committed suicide, emotionally abused his wife, berated his congregants in his sermons, sent ugly and grandiose emails, left his congregation in shambles, and departed his pulpit and his spiritual calling in disgrace.

The progression took decades, then sped up to the point of a near-fatality. It began in increasingly protracted episodes of depression. Periods of elation felt like respites of normalcy. Talk-therapy did not help. Patience of family did not help. Turning to God did not help. Antidepressants helped for a while, then lost their efficacy.

My mood swings became so radical, so detached from reality, that Click to continue »

Filed under: Themes, The Skinny on Fat

Please Don’t Count Food Points in Front of the Children

 by LA Crompton

It occurred to me this morning, while absentmindedly eating a discarded bowl of Winnie the Pooh cereal with a child-sized purple plastic spoon, that my eating habits have changed somewhat since becoming a mother. The realization sent me to the cupboard in search of a more respectable breakfast: my own bowl of Pooh cereal with an adult-sized metal teaspoon. While my tastes occasionally run toward the juvenile, I am grateful that deciding what to eat is no longer the super-charged emotional event it once was.

Adolescence marked my initiation into the prison of an eating disorder that morphed into every imaginable form over nearly ten years. I engaged in a war against my body because it began to grow more curves than I deemed attractive. In fact, judging by the fashion magazines I so cherished, my body was growing more curves than the world deemed attractive. And since my adolescent mind could not possibly realize that the world was wrong, and that my body was fine, I began a diet. Click to continue »