KITCHEN MISADVENTURES: CAUGHT IN A CELLULOID JAM. I always felt bad for Meg, in Little Women, when her jelly wouldn't jell. So is it appropriate, or ironic, that I have now become the Anti-Meg?

I attempted to make strawberry jam, based on a Food & Wine recipe. The idea was that this recipe, for "icebox strawberry jam," didn't require anything crazy like sterilized jars or ice baths or what have you, and it would keep in the fridge for about two weeks. The recipe in the cookbook is as follows:

ingredients: one pint thickly sliced strawberries; 1/4 cup honey; 1/4 tsp finely grated lemon zest; small pinch five-spice powder; salt & pepper

how-to: Put everything in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 40 mins. Let cool, then refrigerate until chilled.

What happened: OK, so I estimated on the honey, because I don't have a measuring cup. I used between 1/2 and 1/3 of a small honeybear. (...Shut up, I think they're cute.) I also used the juice of a lemon, rather than the lemon zest, because I'm easily bored. Other than that, I basically followed the recipe.

And I got this... stuff. It's kind of awesome in its own special way. It doesn't spread so well, and I think the honey vs. strawberry flavors don't blend as well as they should. But it doesn't taste bad at all, and if I can come up with good recipes that won't require spreadability (scrambled eggs + strawberry jam?), I think it'll be yummy. Still... what I actually have in my fridge right now is not so much strawberry jam as strawberry sludge.

How come? People can definitely correct me if they think it didn't work out because of the amount of honey or the lemon juice vs. lemon zest issue. But I think it's because I overcooked. There was a definite point when the mixture turned from "some strawberries in some honey" to "jam impending, ten o'clock!", and I think I wasn't attentive enough to that shift. Basically, the mixture darkened and became the color I associate with strawberry jam, rather than the color I associate with fresh strawberries, and that's probably when I should have cut off the stove. Instead I kept cooking for the entire time stated in the recipe. I suspect five to ten fewer minutes on the stovetop would have produced jam that would spread like an inappropriate simile. Unfortunately, you really do have to chop up a lot of strawberries for not a lot of jam, so I'm not sure when I'll be trying this recipe again.

Bonus misadventure!: I forgot that "on sale" does not = "cheap." Hence my lunch today: bread topped with thickly-sliced heirloom tomato, thickly-sliced fresh mozzarella, and leaves of fresh Thai basil, all toasted in the toaster oven on a foiled tray. Gotta say, I had expected a heirloom tomato to taste super awesome, and this one, at least, pretty much tasted like any other tomato. (I munched a bit of it raw, and cooked half of it with pasta, too, so I've tried it several ways.) The open-faced sandwich was good! --but probably not good enough to justify the fact that I was basically eating money.

And he had the idea to fly
So the wind swept the blogwatch across the sky...

About Last Night:

Aug. 5. Young partridgers, strong flyers. Soft showers. Swifts. Pease are hacking.
Aug. 6. Nuthatch chirps; is very loquacious at this time of the year. Large bat appears, vespertilio altivolans.
Aug. 7. Rye-harvest begins. Procured the above-mentioned specimen of the bat, a male.
Aug. 8. Rain in the night, with wind. Swifts. Sultry & moist: Cucumbers bear abundantly. Showers about. Procured a second large bat, a male.
Aug. 10. Flying ants, male & female.
Aug. 11. Heavy clouds round the horizon. Lambs play & frolick.
Aug. 16. Rain, driving rain, dry. Four swifts still.
Aug. 18. No dew, rain, rain, rain. Swans flounce & dive. Chilly & dark.
Aug. 19. Swifts abound. Swallows & martins bring out their second broods which are perchers. Thunder: wind.

more; oh, so cool.

Disputed Mutability: Why she would recommend ex-gay ministries; her problems with the theories about "healing" homosexuality. I... still really wouldn't, as to the first post, but you can certainly take that post as (for the most part) a list of things to look for in non-ex-gay ministries as well. Anyway, I'm linking these posts basically to provide a perspective in many ways different from mine, so if you are interested in that, go on over there.... I'm sorry, I think I'm sounding very standoffish, and I don't mean to. It's just that it would take more time and energy than I have right now to detail what I agreed with and didn't agree with here, with all the requisite "this is just One Squid's Experience" disclaimers, and it would take "tl;dr" to the next level anyway. So I'm just linkin', not so much with the thinkin'.

ETA: Why do I post while watching horror movies? Why do I fail completely to express myself? (And why am I in this handbasket?) What I meant was that the DM posts are well worth your time, I could sign on to a lot of what she said and was fruitfully challenged by the parts I couldn't, and all I wanted to do was a.) point you that way in case you're interested and b.) note that I do have points of disagreement. Sorry for sounding kind of bitchy above.

True Choices for Women: Profiles of pro-life pregnancy centers. What do they do? What do they need? etc. And if you want a more up-close and personal look, and you live in the DC area, the wonderful Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center will be holding its fall volunteer training soon. Call (202) 546-1018 and ask for Ann.... Blog link via Amy Welborn.

The Accra Daily Mail reports on a conference of Africa's center-right parties. Via Colby Cosh.

And a really good article on immigration in Delaware. Also via Amy W.

And last, but most emphatically not least, A Holy Tango of Literature:

Shall I compare thee to a sperm whale, sperm?
Thou art more tiny and more resolute...

and much more. Many are just cutesy, but the ones that work are awesomely awesome.

TWO AGITATOR LINKS: Column on "policy recommendations to rein in the excesses of paramilitary police raids."

And: evil.

The reporters pick up their blogs and watches, they rush to the scene...

Hello again. Things will be very busy here for the rest of the week, so I'm not sure how much I'll be around. I hope to post something brief on The Imitation of Christ, and maybe something on the painter CRW Nevinson. For now, though, all you get is a small blogwatch.

Balkinization: On Article 3 and the origin of the 1996 War Crimes Act. Powerful.

Claw of the Conciliator reviews Tim Powers's fantastic Cold War demonology, Declare.

Donate or show your support to the Seattle Jewish charity where that Muslim* guy killed someone and injured several. (Via Dreadnought.)

[eta: baptized Christian, self-declared Muslim, your guess is as good as mine.]

THE IRAQI BLOGROLL on the side there has been updated. (...Finally.) All of the blogs are very much worth your time--please check them out. If you want more, Iraq Blog Count is a really good round-up site.

SCATTERCHAT:

ScatterChat is a HACKTIVIST WEAPON designed to allow non-technical human rights activists and political dissidents to communicate securely and anonymously while operating in hostile territory. It is also useful in corporate settings, or in other situations where privacy is desired.

It is a secure instant messaging client (based upon the Gaim software) that provides end-to-end encryption, integrated onion-routing with Tor, secure file transfers, and easy-to-read documentation.

Its security features include resiliency against partial compromise through perfect forward secrecy, immunity from replay attacks, and limited resistance to traffic analysis... all reinforced through a pro-actively secure design.

here

I... don't really know what that stuff means, but it certainly sounds useful. Via the Club for Growth.

ALWAYS OUR CHILDREN: As part of working on the piece described below, I finally read the US Bishops' document addressed to parents of gay children. It's... significantly better than I expected! I mean, yes, there is some CatholicSpeak, and some waffly places where I suspect there was a lot of catfighting behind the scenes. The section on chastity is convoluted and less helpful than it needs to be. When I hear the phrase "gay and lesbian ministry" I think of this, not this, and while I understand why the bishops didn't want to single out any particular group or ministry for praise, they could definitely be clearer in their phrasing. But overall, yeah, it is helpful, and I think the criticism of it has been overplayed. I'm sidebar-linking it.

YOUR DISCO NEEDS YOU! Hi peoples. I am working on a piece for USA Today on traditionally religious parents whose children come out. (And yes, I hate the phrase "traditionally religious" as much as you do, so feel free to suggest something a) better and b) two words long.) Basically it will be advice: how to show your love for your child, maintain your faith in God, reconcile if you've said something really horrible or become estranged... stuff like that. For this piece, I'd really love to speak with people who have been on either side of that exchange--parents or children. (Or siblings? If you have a story or something to share, that would be helpful too.) Although the piece is written from a Catholic perspective--you guys know my deal--I am just as interested in speaking with gay people or their parents who no longer practice their faith due (in significant part) to their experience of family and sexual orientation.

Practicalities: I plan to have this thing to my editor by 5 pm Friday. It's very unlikely that I will incorporate everyone I speak with into the piece. I can definitely quote you anonymously/pseudonymously if you want.

To reach me, please email eve_tushnet@yahoo.com, or use the email link on the left side of the screen.

THANK YOU. Please feel free to link/quote this on your own blogs if you think it might be useful, though please do note my time constraint, so that people will know when it is too late to respond.

TWO LINKS: The Agitator replies to critics of his paper on the rise of paramilitary policing.

And the Washington Post's anti-farm-subsidies series continues: a look at drought aid here, with links to previous reports on catfish farmers, ranchers (and again), growers in a good year, and people who don't farm a'tall.

TWO LINKS: Lots of stuff lately about that Anglican lady who is ministering to the fashion industry. But the article that caught my eye is this one from the Telegraph--completely worth reading in full:

..."So I thought, if you play this argument through, the law is saying there are good reasons why I shouldn't be alive. And I look at my life and I think, 'That's rubbish.' Even if I hadn't had my surgery, even if I'd chosen to stay the way I looked before, that's no good reason for me not to be alive."

more (via Thunderstruck. It was also striking that Rev Jepson instinctively and casually uses the term "bio-ethicist" to mean "someone who says it's okay to kill innocent humans".... Anyway, it's a really powerful piece, you should read it.)

And Alice von Hildebrand with a beautiful piece on friendship:

Friendship is the remnant of paradise. ...

Augustine tells us that his heart was "black with grief." He could not conceive how he could live without the one with whom he had developed such a profound bond. He wept, suffered, and shed abundant tears, but these were unbaptized tears. Years later, when Augustine wrote the Confessions, he remarked: "O madness which does not know how to love men as men should be loved." Deeply rooted in the Faith, Augustine perceived that any true friendship or human love should be rooted in God. It is only in Him that true love can blossom. ...

The question is: How deep, how profound, how total is one's love for one's friend? How far does the "moral" obligation go? Tell me how much you are willing to sacrifice for your friend, and I will tell you how deep your love is.

more, both practical and inspiring. I think everyone can find some measure of needed chastisement here, as well as needed encouragement. (via And Also With You; I hope to write a little bit about friendship soon, though it will hardly be as lovely as this.)

MISCELLANY: About Last Night has a cool quote.

The Agitator's paper on the rise of SWAT teams and paramilitary policing is out now:

...We're also launching an interactive map to accompany the paper. And I frankly think the map is what's going to convince most people of the scope of this problem. I've plotted every botched raid I found in my research, with a description of what happened and a list of sources. You can sort the map by type of incident. So, for example, if you wanted to see only those raids where an innocent person was killed, it would look like this. If you wanted to see raids where a nonviolent offender was killed (a recreational gambler or potsmoker, for example), it would look like this. If you wanted to see all of the "wrong door" raids where no one was killed, it would look like this.

more

And Dappled Things is seeking submissions:

Dappled Things is currently accepting submissions for its Feast of the Archangels 2006 issue, which is scheduled for publication on September 29, 2006. As always, we are seeking exceptional work by young authors and artists inspired by the religious, literary, artistic, philosophical, theological, and cultural heritage of the Catholic Church. We accept fiction, poetry, essays, reviews, cartoons, fine arts images, and photography. The deadline for submissions is August 14, 2006. To view our submission guidelines please visit our website at www.dappledthings.org.

ANNA THE K: Ratty gave me Richard Pevear and Larissa Volonkhosky's translation of Anna Karenina, and I finally finished it. These are some fairly random and unfocused thoughts about a really great book; your comments welcome. Spoilers throughout, not so much for the climax (which I expect everyone knows about) but for other things in the novel--and I'm glad I didn't know about those things before reading it, because I do enjoy suspense in reading, so if you haven't read AK and think you might not want to know all of the plot points, you might want to skip this post.

Og No Like: OK, I am not good at the 19th-century novel. All those scenes! Scenes of people doing stuff, for no apparent reason--shopping for leeks, talking about paintings, but rarely in a way that connects up with the larger themes or plot-arcs. It's realistic, I suppose: Most of what we do all day doesn't connect to the "themes or plot-arcs" of our own lives, yeah? But it's also boring and frustrating for me as a reader. I have real life to be random and seemingly pointless--it's not what I go to novels for. (Insert rant about how expressionism is the ultimate Catholic style. Someday I'll write that rant.)

I also found both Levin and (especially!) Kitty kind of slappable, especially in Kitty's relation to Levin's brother's mistress. Very Lady Bountiful. But see below.

And the ending, with Levin's thoughts about God, was... unsatisfying. I know it's very difficult to write about religious experiences in general--as a reader I often come to such descriptions with a high level of defensiveness, and have an unusually hard time relating to experiences that are very unlike mine. And Levin's inner life in this final section is very, very unlike mine. So I am not completely willing to say, "This section failed." I'll just say that it failed for me, and I disliked it, and didn't see the point of it.

Og Like!: Well, now that I've beaten up on a writer who had more talent in his pinky toenail than I have in my entire self, I will say that opening with the Oblonskys and closing with the Levins is perfect. Avoiding opening or closing with the triangle at the book's center really works. At some level it makes the book less tragic and more bourgeois--its assumptions are steadier than what I'd expect from a tragedy, if you see what I mean.

I did love so many of the characters: Stiva, Seryozha, Karenin especially, I think. All of the characters felt very real. And the Levins' childbirth scene was amazing, one of the most powerful things I've read in a novel. See below for more on that.

Heteronarrativity: Okay, now this I found really interesting, but I'm also worried that others will a) find it obvious and boring or b) think I'm saying something that I'm not. But fortuna favet audaci, so here goes: Anna Karenina may be the most heterosexual novel I've ever read.

Partly, this is a statement about me: I haven't read any Austen, nor any Trollope, for example. (And yes, I plan to remedy the Austen thing, at least, very soon.)

But even so--AK's narrative thrust and emotional power come from its depiction of things like: how having a child with a person changes your view of that person (for good or ill). How your changing relationship to your child's parent changes your relationship with your child (again, for good or ill). How the inescapability of childbearing changes marriage (and adultery). How societal expectations change people when acceptance of these norms is the default, rather than heroic resistance being the default.

And there are elements very common in the other works I've loved, but absent or marginal in AK: alienation is the most obvious. There's less emphasis on physical beauty than I'm used to, I think, with a correspondingly greater emphasis on clothes and other cultural products. (The land is depicted in a way that does emphasize its beauty, but embeds that beauty in a rhythm of work and generativity.)

AK resonated very strongly with me--though almost exclusively because it sounded so much like what married friends of mine had experienced, not at all because it sounded like my experience. I'm not trying to make any larger point really; I just thought this was interesting, and would, as I said, welcome readers' comments.

Tore up all your blogwatch,
didn't feel too clever.
Spent the whole of Sunday
sticking you together...

Camassia: Fryblogging!

Deuteronomy 30:16: Conversion-story-blogging. Now, with extra Hecate....

BRIEF INTERVIEW with me, here. Mostly on blogging and/vs. journalism.

DISPUTED MUTABILITY replies to/comments on my whole long series on ex-gay stuff.

VIA THE RAT: Description of a high-school-turned-prison-turned-museum, in Cambodia:

...Many of the prison guards here were just children themselves, usually between the ages of 10 and 15, sometimes picked out from other camps. Literature from Tuol Sleng says the children usually started out quite normal but increased in their remorseless cruelty towards those they were charged with minding. Eventually these children were often killed themselves by other children that replaced them.

Prisoners had to ask permission to do anything—from going the bathroom to even moving their bodies. Failure to obey immediately would result in savage beatings with electrical wire or electric shock. The regulations were posted in each cell, some of them even detailing how prisoners should behave during torture. For example:

"Rule #6 - While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all."

more (very difficult to read, for obvious reasons.)

The Rat also links to a chilling report on kidnapping as a tool of China's one-child policy:

...Although other regions have seen forced abortions, activists say the abuses in Linyi were unusual because local authorities took villagers within the area hostage. When women fled to avoid losing their babies, lawyers and residents say, officials seized their parents, nephews or cousins as leverage, hoping this would force the women to return.

Liang Suhe, a villager in Banqiao, said he was detained with his wife for a month last year because her brother and sister-in-law were planning to have a third child and authorities couldn't find her.

"We were both beaten up, but my wife was beaten harder," he said.

more

KITCHEN ADVENTURE: FRY COOK. I can make french fries at home!!! ph34r my l33t sk1llz!!!

Okay, first I will give the recipe I was working from; then I will tell you what actually happened. Real-life cooking never replicates what happens in the books with the glossy pictures. I think you will do best to follow the recipe but keep my problems/modifications in mind, and adjust flexibly and quickly when things seem not to be following the plan.

recipe (from a Food & Wine cookbook): Oven Fries with Garlic and Parsley. Four servings. Active: 30 mins, total: 1 hr 15 mins.

2 lbs baking potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1/3-inch-wide fries; 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil; salt; 2 large garlic cloves, minced; 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley; freshly ground pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 475. Prepare a large bowl of ice water. Add the potatoes and let soak for 15 mins. Drain well and pat dry.

2. In a large bowl, toss the potatoes with the olive oil and season with salt. Spread the potatoes on a large nonstick rimmed baking sheet in a single layer. Bake for about 20 mins, or until the potatoes are golden on the bottom. Turn and bake for about 25 mins longer, turning occasionally, until golden and crisp. Transfer the fries to a platter, sprinkle with the garlic, parsley and pepper and serve at once.

what really happened: I am bored by this talk of garlic and parsley. Og want fries!!! ...Also, my freezer doesn't work so good.

So instead of using ice water, I put a bowl of tap water in the fridge for a half-hour. Yeah. Then I soaked the cut-up potato (just one potato) in the water, still in the fridge, for the requisite 15 minutes. I did everything else according to the recipe (using proportionally less olive oil, of course, and interpreting "rimmed baking sheet" to mean "baking tray covered in aluminum foil"), until the first 20 minutes of baking had passed. Then I opened the oven door to turn the fries.

That's when the smoke alarm went off.

Heh. It turns out that for whatever reason--maybe the lack of ice water, maybe the foil, maybe something extra-hot in the apartment (could it be... me?)--the fries were already pretty much done. I don't own a "platter," so I put 'em in a bowl, sprinkled more salt, and macked them like it was my job. (...Only with more enthusiasm.)

They were so good. One fry was burnt and inedible (I assume that's the tattletale who tripped the alarm); one fry was very slightly undercooked. The rest were pretty much perfect, even though they had been cooked for less than half the recommended time.

So basically--be flexible, check your fries, keep your windows open... and be a confident cook! I always thought fries were kind of exotic and awesome, the sort of thing for which you needed decades of steeping in the esoteric secrets of Better Homes & Gardens--and in the end, they were super easy, quick, and delicious. And really, is anything in the grocery store cheaper than the humble brown potato? Highly recommended.

SUMMER READING LISTS FROM "THE SMART SET"... and also me. Many thanks to Kelly Jane Torrance for letting me be a part of this fun project--and she's still soliciting thoughts on summer reading, so go say hi!

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone;
I can see all blogwatches in my way...

Mumpsimus: What's wrong with infodumps anyway?, and other questions on exposition in fiction. (Be sure to read the comments, too.)

Sed Contra is back!

And, from the Asia Times: Economic growth hasn't stopped repression of journalists, Buddhists, and Christians in Vietnam. (Via Colby Cosh.)

ETA: Mansfield Fox on closing a rooming house in New Haven: "For the tenants' own sake, we must thrust them out of the only in-city housing they can afford, and onto the streets!"

WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS IS A GOOD FIVE-CENT FLOPHOUSE?: Interesting Weekly Standard piece on reducing homelessness by, basically, bringing back rooming houses. I do not know enough to comment on this stuff; if others have thoughts, send 'em in. Link via SRD. Snippets:

...At a remarkably underreported conference in Denver in May, advocates for the homeless met to discuss a pattern of falling homeless populations across the country. In the past six months, New York has announced a reduction of 13 percent, Denver 11 percent, Portland 20 percent, Miami 30 percent, Philadelphia 50 percent. ...

"Housing First" has now returned to the original idea--that housing is the problem--with a twist. The problem is not that the federal government is not building public housing. The real problem is that cities have been very efficient in eliminating bottom-rung housing through building code enforcement, zoning restrictions, and (in cites such as New York and San Francisco) rent control. All these "reforms" were supposed to upgrade "substandard" housing and improve opportunities for the poor. In fact they worsened conditions for the very poor.

The principal victim of "reform" has been SROs--the single-room occupancy hotels
that were the last resort of winos and stumblebums in bygone days. Entrepreneurs used to take old factory floors and other buildings and turn them into "partition hotels" where people could sleep behind thin walls for as little as $2 a night. It might have looked like blight, but it was functional housing for transients. "In Chicago, SRO units declined 80 percent between 1960 and 1980," reported veteran social worker Richard White in Rude Awakenings: What the Homeless Crisis Tells Us (1991). "In the past twenty years, there has been a net loss of 22,000 low-rent units in downtown Seattle. . . . [A]n increase in the number of homeless singles there in the past five years has corresponded directly to the loss of these SROs."

Mangano witnessed the same pattern in Boston. "Governor William Weld commissioned a study, and we found that almost 96 percent of these bottom-rung units had gone out of business during the 1970s and 1980s," he says. "SROs, lodging houses, mom-and-pop rooming houses, all had fallen before campaigns that were supposed to improve housing. At the same time, there was a mirror-image rise in emergency shelters. By taking away bottom-rung housing, we left the poor with nothing."

The Interagency Council is now encouraging cities to reverse this trend and adjust building and zoning codes to tolerate housing once labeled "substandard." Seattle has created 50 new units with a shared kitchen and a bathroom down the hall and 25 more that are nothing but a partitioned room with a bed and a dresser. Indianapolis found it had 20,000 vacant units ripe for rehabilitation. San Francisco is restoring 1,500 apartments in the Tenderloin district through private ownership.

more

COMMANDMENTS COMEDIES: (I still haven't watched Decalogue, no.) Dan Mansueto writes to suggest Divorce Italian-Style as a possible Ten Commandments-y movie. He notes that I don't have any comedies on my list--might be interesting to do an all-comedy list. I also realized that not only is my entire list American, but virtually all of them are so intrinsically American that they couldn't really be translated into other nationalities.... I'm not sure what difference that would make, but again, I'm still taking movie suggestions from You The Viewers At Home. I've Netflix'd Divorce Italian-Style....

ALL THINGS COUNTER, ORIGINAL, SPARE, AND FILLED WITH NINJAS: Dappled Things' Feast of Sts Peter and Paul issue is available online here!--a very cool Catholic literary and cultural magazine, which had the dubious taste to publish one of my stories.

And friend of this blog Joshua Elder writes to say that the first volume of his manga, Mail-Order Ninja, is available in comics shops and bookstores now. (Or here, for example.) It is about a kid who orders a ninja in the mail. The short piece on which it was based won an award from Tokyopop and is lots of fun....

He knew and felt that what was being accomplished was similar to what had been accomplished a year ago in a hotel in a provincial capital, on the deathbed of his brother Nikolai. But that had been grief and this was joy. But that grief and this joy were equally outside all ordinary circumstances of life, were like holes in this ordinary life, through which something higher showed.
--Anna Karenina (during Kitty's labor)

ERIC CONVEYS AN EMOTION is back online!!!

SUPER-MEH. Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure the only way I would have really loved the new Superman movie is if John Cho played Superman and Kal Penn played Lex Luthor.

Not the target audience, no.

CELLULOID TABLETS: So I'm about to watch Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue series, ten movies keyed to the Commandments. And I got to thinking about which movies I would pick to illustrate which commandments. This is a personal and perhaps bizarre list; I'd be interested in reader comments and suggestions. My only criteria for the list were: 1. I had to at least like the movie (Any Given Sunday is on the borderline here--all the others I really think are excellent, whereas this one is just goodish), and 2. it had to intuitively feel right. So these aren't necessarily movies that preach--just movies that explore some of the things the commandment is concerned with. ...This is not an especially serious-minded list, but I'm doing it because I'm very interested to see how KK's approaches to the commandments differ from the ones I was working with here:

You shall have no other gods before me. The Apostle. Excellent movie, with, I think, an undercurrent about having faith in preachers or leaders (or one's "legend in his own mind" self-image) rather than in God.

You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. The Godfather. I'm taking this commandment as, "don't use holy things for what is commonplace or unholy"; both the godfather role and the contrast between the sacrament of marriage ("my daughter's wedding day") and the Mafia work here.

Keep holy the Lord's day. Any Given Sunday. Obvious really.

Honor your father and your mother. The Bride of Frankenstein. Heh. Lots of anxieties about generation and creation vs. procreation here. Plus, it's an awesome movie.

You shall not kill. Apocalypse Now.

You shall not commit adultery. The Secret Lives of Dentists.

You shall not steal. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. The Talented Mr. Ripley--not so much because it involves false witness against a neighbor, but because Ripley's entire character is composed of and eaten up by falsehoods.

You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods. Two together in The Sweet Smell of Success, one of my favorite movies (the novella is excellent too). Hunsecker for the first, Falco the second.

thoughts?

KITCHEN ADVENTURETTE: SPINACH THING. Because I had a bunch of stuff.

ingredients: spaghetti, garlic, dried herbs (basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, plus black pepper), button a.k.a. plain old mushrooms, olive oil, spinach! from a package, plum tomato, balsamic vinegar, lemon, butter, parmesan cheese.

to make: Put a pot of (salted, except I'm out of salt) water on to boil. While it's heating, chop the garlic (I think coarse chopping would actually work better than fine). Put the chopped garlic in a pan with olive oil and the herbs. Set it cooking. Slice/chop the mushrooms and add them to the pan. When it's nice and crackling and snapping along, turn the heat down to simmer and stir the garlic and mushrooms now and again. When the water is boiling, add the pasta. Cook cook cook. About halfway through the pasta's cooking time, add the spinach to the pan and turn the heat back up. Cook the spinach, adding more as it cooks down, until you've got as much as you want. Chop the tomato. Add the vinegar to the pan. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice into the pan. Stir stir cook cook. At the very last minute, add the tomato to the pan. Stir stir. Drain and butter the pasta and top with vegs and cheese. Yum!

it tastes: bright and tangy! also buttery and rich!

HAPPY FOURTH OF THE JULY FROM THE MANOLO!

LINKSES. The Washington Post is doing a series on farm subsidies and some of the (many, many) reasons they suck. Here is the first installment, "Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm"; here is the second, "Growers Reap Benefits, Even in Good Years." Here is my dormant farm-dole blog.

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack vetoes bill that would curb eminent domain. Bah! Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) said some good stuff though. Via the Club for Growth.

"Well, I'm very glad," he said, coldly looking at her, her hair, the dress he knew she had put on for him.

He liked it all, but he had already liked it so many times!
--Anna Karenina, tr. Pevear and Volonkhosky

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER BLOG. Some, uh, familiar names.

(and yes, I'll be back soon--have some stuff I want to post, but I'm tired now.)

MORE ON "NOT FEELING SPIRITUAL."

But the blogwatch caught up to me,
Smashed me to smithereens...

Amy Welborn: More on bad homilies.

Colby Cosh: Today's international news roundup seems even more fascinating than usual.

Dappled Things: What to do (and what not to do!) when you're "not feeling spiritual." Must-read pick for the day.

Disputed Mutability: Very honest, challenging blog from an ex-gay woman.

It was the finest achievement of my life so far, arrived at with bluff, deceit, hypocrisy, manipulation, abuse of trust and a few exploitative elements of gimcrack wisdom and genuinely good advice. Good advice, like a secret, is easier to give away than to keep.
--Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot

THE AGITATOR has an enormous amount of stuff about the problems with the increasing use of SWAT teams and no-knock raids in domestic policing.

WHAT KIND OF FOOD ARE YOU? "You are Japanese Food. Strange yet delicious. Contrary to popular belief, you're not always eaten raw." Snerk.

Via E-Pression, who is Italian food, and Ratty who is (of course) French.

EMINENT DOMAIN AFTER KELO--a roundup from the Institute for Justice. Via The Corner.

HOLYOFFICE STRIKES AGAIN!!!--How to Give a Bad Homily:

...Popular culture, like all Western culture, is indeed filled with allusions and references--sometimes self-aware, sometimes not--to Christianity. Instead of going for the obvious ones, though, you'll want to instead explain how Jesus is like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the vampires are sins and they're not really being slain so much as forgiven, and of course Jesus is not a woman.

you know you want more!

TORTURE:

Beating; punching with fists; use of truncheons; kicking; slamming against walls; stretching or suspension (to tear ligaments or muscles to cause asphyxia); external electric shocks; forcing prisoners to abase and to urinate on themselves; forced masturbation; forced renunciation of religion; false confessions or accusations; applying urine and feces to prisoners; making verbal threats to a prisoner and his family; denigration of a prisoner's religion; force-feeding; induced hypothermia and exposure to extreme heat; dietary manipulation; use of sedatives; extreme sleep deprivation; mock executions; water immersion; "water-boarding"; obstruction of the prisoner's airway; chest compression; thermal burning; rape; dog bites; sexual abuse; forcing a prisoner to watch the abuse or torture of a loved one.

more

and

Take all the shelving out of a typical filing cabinet. (My own office cabinet happens to be slightly smaller than the cell described here.) Now lock yourself in it for two days. You may notice you can neither stand up straight nor lie down, and crouching gets really uncomfortable extremely fast. Remember that as an Iraqi detainee, the Geneva Conventions apply to you. Now ask yourself: Why would Formica consider such treatment "reasonable" for two days? And if someone put an American soldier in such conditions for two days--or authorized doing so--what should happen to that person?

more

Calendar Against Torture

June 26, day of lobbying on Capitol Hill against torture.

ALSO FROM THE MAILBAG: A reader writes that he got the Weakerthans' "Reconstruction Site" and it is, indeed, made out of awesome. See what happens when you listen to me?

GIANT GAY MAILBAG OF DOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!: I'm sorry this took so long. These are roughly in reverse chronological order, most recent first. And I'm not posting all the emails I received, though I will post any critical ones (assuming the author gives permission). Where readers praise or criticize other groups or books, please assume that I have no knowledge of these groups/books. Thanks very much to everyone who read my NRO piece.

From an anonyreader:

I've enjoyed reading your posts and your NRO article this past week, but especially your recent post Closer to Heaven. If you're looking for an antidote for the ex-gay movement's tendency to immanentize the eschaton, I highly recommend The Spirituality of Imperfection, which a spiritual director had me read a few years ago. The book's not entirely orthodox, but it does a good job of emphasizing that the spiritual life is not so much about turning ourselves into super-duper-human-beings-without-any-flaws, as it is about learning to acknowledge our dependence on God's merciful love and opening ourselves to that love by receiving the sacraments and by practicing it concretely with regard to others.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Theresian spirituality and her Little Way, and I often look at this issue in that light. Rather than grow despondent on account of her weaknesses, she found joy in viewing them as opportunities to practice humility and to open herself to God's merciful love precisely in the context of ordinary, everyday life. For people like us who experience SSA, I find that approach is a healthy antidote to the temptation to despair.

Another way to frame the issue is that these ex-gay ministries all too often look at people with SSA as problems in need of fixing rather than persons in need of love. I would compare it to the way society treated crisis pregnancies pre-Roe v. Wade. As awful as that decision was, it prompted pro-lifers to open crisis pregnancy centers to help women in need, in a way that had not been done previously. I hope that it doesn't take similarly awful public policies on gay rights to inspire comparable ministries to people with SSA. But sometimes God permits these evils to occur in order that He may draw forth an even greater good.

If you're interested in learning more about how solidly Catholic psychologists approach these "ex-gay" issues, you might want to contact a local outfit called the Alpha Omega Clinic, which has close ties to the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Crystal City. They do some great work on these issues.

From John:

I was interested in your report on the 'ex-gay' conference. When it comes to 'ex-gay' theology, do you think that Catholic/Protestant differences might be important? I was wondering about this in one particular respect. One of the issues at the Reformation was whether concupiscence as such had the nature of sin. Concupiscence is the existence of physical desires to sin, desires that remain in us even after baptism has removed original sin, and that remain present in this life even in the saints unless they are given some extraordinary grace. Catholic teaching was that since these desires are not in the will (we don't choose to have them or feel them, and can't choose to get rid of them), they are not sinful, since sin can only exist in the will. This teaching was stated by the Council of Trent at its fifth session;

' 5. If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven. But this holy synod confesses and is sensible, that in the baptized there remains concupiscence, or an incentive (to sin); which, whereas it is left for our exercise, cannot injure those who consent not, but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; yea, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned. This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.'

'Of sin' refers to its resulting from the sin of Adam, not from the sins of those who suffer from concupiscence. The teaching was directed against Protestants who claimed that concupiscence was really and truly sin, and used this claim to support their view of justification (according to which justification is something external to the person justified, and does not change them from being sinners to not being sinners). So on the Catholic view homosexual desires (like most heterosexual desires), which are froms of concupiscence, are not as such sins, and do not make the person who experiences them any worse as a person. So Ludwig Ott, in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, remarks, 'The evils remaining after baptism, such as concupiscence, suffering and death (poenalitates), have for the baptised person no longer the character of punishment, but are a means of testing and proving him (D. 792: ad agonem) and of assimilation with Christ (p. 355).' St. Thomas interestingly says that one reason why God permits such concupiscence to remain after baptism is that 'it is also useful for man in order to avoid the vice of self-exaltation that the infirmity of sensuality remain; "And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7)". Consequently this infirmity remains in man after baptism, just as a wise physician discharges a patient without having cured his illness if it could not be cured without the danger of a more serious illness.' (De Veritate, question 25 article 7 ad 5.)

I wonder if Protestants do not tend to inherit from their Reformation forebears the idea that homosexual desires as such are sins, and so that redemption requires that they be eliminated. I don't suppose that they all read Luther and Calvin on this subject, only that it is part of the outlook they have inherited. (Obviously they have not inhertied the whole outlook since they no longer think that sin must necessarily persist in the justified; they only inherit the part that holds that physical desires resulting from concupiscence are sinful.) If so this would explain why they can only conceive of ministry to homosexuals as an effort to get them to become heterosexual. It certainly does not seem to occur to them that homosexual desires can be useful, or means of assimilation with Christ. Do you think there is anything in this?

[Eve replies: I don't know nearly enough about Protestantism to feel comfortable taking a stand here. I do think it's interesting, of course, that "ex-gay" ideology is much more a Protestant concern than a Catholic one; but I don't have an opinion on why that is.]

An anonyreader writes:

Nice set of observations on ex-gay ministries on NRO and your blog. You are going to get an earful of abuse from all sorts of people, no doubt, so I wanted to chime in my approval, even if I agree with them only 87 percent of the time. :-)

Some random thoughts:

Re Nicolosi and NARTH--what gets me about those conservatives who lionize him is that usually conservatives rightly deride Freudian psychoanalysis as psychobabble. Do they think that Freud was wrong about everything except the etiology of homosexuality? Special pleading perhaps?

Re change in sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is much more fluid than gay activists usually suppose and whole lot less so anti-gay activists suppose. The experience of classical pederasty/homosexuality should indicate that clearly! On the other hand, it seems to me that the more likely one needs psychological therapy to change one's sexual orientation, the less likely one will succeed. I certainly don't think A.N. Wilson, Evelyn Waugh, or thousands of English public school/graduates required therapy to live an ostensibly straight life and therapy, and in contrast prayer meditation wouldn't (didn't) do a lick of good for Christopher Isherwood.

My own "origin" story--assuming that it dovetails with reality at all--covers some of the same bases as Nicolosi, but not others. Reading origin stories are very much like reading horoscopes in that way. It is uncanny how much I resemble Scorpio whenever I look at the astrology page of the paper, but then again, those horoscopes are rather universal to the human experience aren't they? Mothers will always be mothers and fathers and sons will usually butt heads and have serious misunderstandings growing up.

I would just assume not go into the reasons why I think I am the way I am, but it will suffice for now that the primary numero uno suspect is an issue that the ex-gays never considered up to now--at least I have never read it. And if my suspicions were ever proven correct, any sort of change for me would be nearly impossible. It is also curious that my personality traits are completely different than the vast majority of gays that I ever come across. It is as if that, save sexual orientation, I have very little in common with any of them. Yet another reason to distrust the psychobabble and sweeping generalizations emanating from the ex-gay movement.

P.S. If you really want to be pissed off at reparative therapists, read van den Aardwig's "Battle for Normality." His method of therapy can be reduced to the following theme: "Snap out of it, you deluded self-pitying fag! Yes, you heard me right!" Repeat ad infinitum. Let the beatings continue until the homo's morale improves.

...I think that Aardwig's approach (and I haven't looked at the book in years mind you) is a variant of cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy is one of the only forms of psychoanalysis that works and is very good having people identifying flawed reasoning and misconceptions, but that assumes that the reasoning of the analyst doesn't suffer from logical flaws either--else one trades one set of false assumptions for another. Or that the analyst could be also abusive in pointing out the supposed flaws.

Warren Throckmorton is hosting a lively debate about "reparative therapy." I haven't read most of it, but, you know, if you want lots more on Joseph Nicolosi and so on, clickez-vous.

From L.:

I thought your take on the ex-gay conference was interesting. How many ex-gays have you spoken with? I'm just wondering if you've been able to speak to very many one to one.

I knew I was a lesbian when I was about five years old and fantasized about my Sunday School teacher. (ha) From there my sexual orientation developed basically into lesbian although I did date boys occasionally to keep people in my very conservative church from talking about me. I shared some of my feelings with girlfriends, who in some cases became my lovers.

However, when I was 20, I knew I had to make a decision in my life and I made a CONSCIOUS choice to pursue heterosexuality, for the simple fact that I wanted a family that conformed to societal mores. I can't tell you how difficult this choice was, to turn my back against who I was at the very core of being. I married a man who has been very understanding of my psyche and I have achieved 20 years of marriage with four children.

It's been hard....it is not an easy choice but it IS a choice. And I can't say that I haven't occasionally fallen by the wayside. It is still very difficult for me and probably always will be.

But worth it? Yes, when I see my four healthy normal kids who have both a mom and a dad; when my husband takes me in his arms; when I search my heart and find nothing but peace.

My point, though, is that in today's culture gays are depicted as having no control over their actions and as a lesbian, I know this to be untrue.

From Michael:

Thank you for your reporting as written in NRO and your blog. Briefly, I am a bisexual New Orleanian who spent time in a Benedictine Catholic Seminary, at which I was converted to Buddhism by some visiting Sri Lankan monks.

As I shed my Catholic cosmology, and its attendant Judeo-Christian morality (which has done much good in the world) I began to realize how beautiful and funny and human our religious impulse is.

To try to meet the dictates of a great big sky god, who evidently has all the power in the universe except the ability to speak clearly, seems so human a thing. Trying to make sense of a universe which baffles, and comforted by the idea of a great big invisiblle parent, who will make all the accidents of fate, and injustice, and confusion be alright in the end--do you know how hard that was to give up?

But it was then that I realized that my impulse to shame, shame of all kinds, was not indigenous, it was learned. That sex is a human function that is just like eating, or breathing--it only means what we want it to mean (humans are "meaning-making" creatures, to be sure) and if we over (or under) eat, there will be consequences.

But I don't knock the shame-makers. People forget how impossible it was for early humans to claw their way out of huddling in caves and learning how to hunt. Trying to make sense of the world they found themselves in--scientists all.

So, keep your faith, if it explains most of the relevant facts of your existence. But how does that hypothesis explain the beautiful, multifaceted humans--gay people--so wondrous and trancendant and beloved--that the Sky God invented a place called Hell for?

Again, thank you for your words.

[Eve replies: Thanks for writing. Two very quick notes: I think humans are meaning-seekers, not solely meaning-creators--we don't paint meaning on a meaningless world. And, of course, I do not believe God "invented Hell" for gay people. All of us are infinitely precious to Him.]

From Mark:

Long time no talk, but I saw your article on NRO and wanted to ask a few questions.

My own dramatic religious conversion involved a spontaneous (but temporary) healing of a physical disease, and a longer process of healing emotional traumas.

Knowing, as I do now, that God can heal anything (but that doesn't mean he will), how much a role can or does God play in healing homosexual orientation I wonder?

Does it require dramatic conversion, a simple turn to God and gradual shift toward faithfulness and religious practice, or is faith generally minimal in helping a change in this area?

My own experience tells me that even though I know that many people sincerely ask God for help in their lives with core difficulties, very few seem to persevere in prayer to the extent that they may be helped or truly seek the depth of faith that transforms them. Could it be that many give up too early or easily on God, or simply want to remain pretty much as they are except for the bad parts?

[Eve replies: Well, yeah, that could be the case with some people. I believe in miraculous healing, and (although I think this is a different issue) grace moving people to a place where past temptations are no longer a pressing problem for them. Specifically, I do believe that some people who considered themselves completely homosexual end up making good, fulfilling, loving marriages. I think the ex-gay movement, however, makes it seem like a) you can make God change your orientation if you want it badly enough, and b) if you don't experience a change in orientation, you are, therefore, a complete failure doomed to misery (and doomed to an obsessive focus on your sexual orientation, to the exclusion of all other possible causes of unhappiness or spiritual difficulties). Even if someone truly desires a change in orientation, I would not direct that person to an ex-gay ministry.]

"GHOST WARRIORS: What happens to a country when its elite won't serve in the military?"

CAMASSIA replies to me. Yeah, I think I was overreading her initial post, which is what I was afraid of. Sigh. Anyway, I apologize for the minor kerfuffle; at least it did prompt this nice line: "One of the odd things about the Christian narrative is that it affirms the worst-case scenario, and at the same time says everything is going to work out wonderfully anyway. It's that paradox that makes it the most hopeful of all religions, in my view at least."

LINKS AND LAMENESS: Lameness first: I'm really, really tired, so I won't be posting mail from you all until tomorrow. Sorry....

Now, links:

Camassia says stuff about minority status and group standards. I find myself oddly defensive about this post; I'm not sure if I'm overreading or what. I feel like I'm being implicitly criticized (in the section on original sin) for being self-indulgent, which I think is inaccurate in this particular instance. She also combines different kinds of difference in ways that, at least from my perspective, obscure a lot more than they illuminate. But like I said, possibly this is my misreading (or a result of our wanting to discuss different things, and my getting irked because she doesn't want to discuss my things!--I suspect that's what's going on with the "different kinds of difference" stuff, especially), and I've always found Camassia to be a thoughtful writer, so please do check out her post.

Ex-Gay Watch: Dave Rattigan on rhetoric vs. reality in the ex-gay movement.

Noli Irritare Leones makes a lot of fun points; here is a sampler:

...What I mean is, sometimes people who are in the struggling-with-same-sex-attraction camp seem to wind up shutting out friendships with their own sex, lest they get too attached, and I can't think how it's possible to sanely live that way. ...

Finding the prayer practices that work for you personally really does make a big difference here. I've found that some things just don't work for me--elaborate imagery (simple images are OK), half hour long periods of uninterrupted meditation (I keep hearing of people who can do this, but I can't keep it up unless I'm in a Quaker meeting, and even then my mind wanders a lot), etc., and some work better--singing, walking meditation, short repetitive phrases, starting the day with a short psalm. ...

I have to admit, one of the things I like to do with the saints is argue with them. [Eve adds: Yes! Absolutely.] ...

I think that's right [re: my comment about the problems with wanting to be fixed], and not just about the ex-gay movement, but about a certain style of Christian dealing with family issues in general. And it gets just as alienating when, say, you and your husband are struggling as best you can to deal with his bipolar disorder as it does when it comes to figuring out how to live as a Christian who's attracted to your own sex. Not, of course, that I want to place bipolar disorder and homosexuality in the same category--except in one particular respect--namely, that, for better or worse, they're both ways of finding that your life doesn't fit that neat pattern that people might expect to see you in when you’ve gotten fixed.

read the whole thing!

And finally, on an unrelated topic, a neat post at GetReligion about godparents.

DON'T COVER MY FACE WITH YOUR HEART (Or, Love, Love Me Don't): You use that word so often. I do not think it means what you think it means.

CLOSER TO HEAVEN: I'm mulling over something that might be a major underlying problem with ex-gay theology (as vs. spiritual practice, psychological theories, or what have you). I know I'm coming at this from an outsider's perspective, so I don't want to assume that I know what's what; but I figured I'd post this in case it is illuminating to anyone.

The possible insight is this: Ex-gay theology/ideology seeks to immanentize the eschaton.

No--hey, wait, let me explain!! "Immanentizing the eschaton" is basically trying to yank Heaven down to earth by force of will. Utopianism, only with a stronger theological connotation, I guess.

And I think there's an intense desire expressed in a lot of ex-gay rhetoric (though definitely not all--Mike Haley said some stuff that went against this tendency, though it didn't end up in the NRO piece) to just get fixed. To get to the place where all your struggles are over. To be, really, in the Church Triumphant right now, not in the Church Militant where everything's crazy. And I think this desire is what makes so much ex-gay rhetoric into a narrative of success or failure: with failure experienced as completely devastating. (The last sentence of the NRO piece gets at this pretty hardcore.)

Again, I really want to emphasize that this is something that might be true of much ex-gay theology--not something I claim to know is true, or something that is true of all ex-gay stuff. I may be really off-base here. Your thoughts very much welcome. (Your thoughts welcome on all of these posts, really, of course.)

current mood: bi-furious
current music: "Don't know what you want but I can't give it anymore" (I am not making that up)

INTERMISSION: Not (very) related to the other stuff I'm posting about today--Agenda Bender on a poem by Pasolini.

LINKS: Later tonight, I hope to post a small mailbag and maybe something else. We'll see if I can order my thoughts. For now, some links:

Peterson Toscano's website (the "Doin' Time at the Homo No Mo' Halfway House" guy).

At Ex-Gay Watch, Joe Riddle (whom I interviewed for the NRO piece) comments.

Dappled Things (blogging Catholic priest) comments.

Sarx (E'rn Orthodox guy) comments: "I too would not be where I am were it not for my sexual attraction to men and the disconnect from everyone that it caused me to feel. You know there has to be meaning somewhere!"

Discussion thread at Amy Welborn's place. So far the comment I agree with most is Old Zhou's statement that ex-gay ideology tends to be "mechanical."

More as events warrant....

"HOMO NO MO'?": In which I attend an ex-gay conference.

The next four posts are all stuff about the conference, or ex-gay ministry/ideology in general--stuff I couldn't fit into the NRO piece. I expect I'll be posting more on this subject today or tomorrow as well.

PLUS A SURPRISING NUMBER OF FOXY CHICKS: In case people are wondering what the June 10 Love Won Out conference was actually like (since I didn't really have space to describe it in the NRO piece), here are my general impressions.

The conference was held in Immanuel's Church; I got the impression, though I could be wrong, that this is a predominantly black church. The crowd seemed to be about 1/3 Immanuel's members. The rest of us were a big old mix: ex-gays, parents of gay children, neutral-to-hostile observers, and same-sex attracted teens or young adults with their moms.

Security was tight-ish. There was a small crowd protesting outside at the start of the conference, organized by Equality Maryland I believe. My purse was searched. The searchers uncovered my big Rive Gauche bottle and held it up skeptically, like it might be a tear gas canister. "...It's perfume," I explained. In a sad defeat for the forces of irony, I was not barred from the conference due to the single girliest item I own. (...Well, okay, second-girliest after that one Evanescence CD.) Anyway, I got my creepy red hospital bracelet to mark me as an official attendee. (This bracelet served, all day long, to remind me that even though I am really pretty chill about my sexual orientation these days, I still have a lot of "issues"--every time I saw it on my wrist I felt marked-out, on display, defensive and slightly shamed. I wish I had kept it.)

The conference was on a weird emotional disconnect, from my perspective. You're bathed in love-and-acceptance talk--and there's lots and lots of stuff about how Christians have mistreated gays in the past, how the churches also need to change, "The ground is level at the foot of the Cross," etc. These reminders actually got a lot of applause and "amen"s from the crowd, too, so hooray for that. But then there were so many things said that left me feeling angry or bewildered or humiliated or helpless. The undercurrent was very bad, at least as I perceived it.

And sometimes it was unclear who the intended audience was. I completely understand that parents whose children come out want a safe space to talk about their pain and confusion. But if I felt kind of awful listening to people talk about how their hearts were "shattered" by their children's coming out, how parents feel like they're in mourning (which maybe explains all the people I've known whose parents said variations on the theme of, "You're dead to me"), I can barely imagine how some 16-year-old with his mom sitting next to him would feel.

Basic impressions of the speakers I saw: Joseph Nicolosi: Not very Scripture-y, presented himself as the voice of scientific reason, definitely the most adamant that he knows everything there is to know about the origins of homosexuality. He vexed me, I tell you what.

Mike Haley: Awww, he was sweet. I got no beef with Haley's testimony, which is all he did at the conference. I did take issue with some stuff he said in my follow-up interview with him, but that's in the NRO article.

Melissa Fryrear: Good things: She did say that "singleness is also blessed" and Scriptural, that you don't have to feel bad about not being married. Plus, she pointed out that everyone's situation is different and the Nicolosi-esque "origin stories" don't explain everything or everyone. And in her presentation of the family dynamics that can, in her view, cause lesbianism, she emphasized that these dynamics can be "real or perceived"--working hard to make neither parents nor children feel like they were being blamed. She also said--to much applause--that the Christian who made the biggest impression on her when she was still a lesbian "put homosexuality on the back burner," presenting Christ as her Savior first rather than talking about her sexuality. It is not my impression that the ex-gay movement, in general, actually takes this approach.

Not so good: Well, obviously, my mom doesn't fit into any of her categories. (Dispassionate, doormat [keep in mind that again, this is focused on the child's perception of the mother, not necessarily the reality], my-best-friend [i.e. trying to be a "pal" instead of a mother], manipulative, domineering, and self-consumed. People who know my mom are probably gaping at the thought that any of these would apply to her.) Plus, there were all kinds of squicky half-jokes about how we could tell she was a "healed woman" because she was wearing skirts and talking about shopping. I did not know Jesus had a position on high heels. From what I've heard from people who have been in ex-gay therapy, this salvation-through-pantyhose plan is a big thing, and I don't rightly get it a'tall.

Bill Maier: Gay people are insane in the membrane. Gay guys and lesbian ladies are prone to depression, alcoholism, suicide, and the heartbreak of psoriasis. I already ranted about some of the (many!) reasons this approach unimpresses me here. I'll try to write more about it later if I can get my thoughts in order. Maier said a bunch of stuff I disagreed with, but honestly, it makes me tired just thinking about it, and was all culture-wars stuff rather than personal or specifically ex-gay, so I'm not going to bother, really.

Joe Dallas: The good: He pointed out that the Bible does not give an "origin story" for homosexuality, "and there is wisdom in that." Emphasized that parents shouldn't force their kids into counseling unless the kid's behavior is "immediately life-threatening and totally out of control." Had a good balance between the parents' concerns and the kid’s fears.

He did say that it was fine for parents to say stuff like, "I'm hurt that you're gay," or "I'm disappointed." I know I have Issues around some of this stuff, but I cringe like crazy when I hear that. I don't see why your kid needs to know that (and frankly, if it's true, I suspect your kid knows anyway). When he talked about his own father's reaction, he said his father started with "I love you," I respect your integrity and your ability to make this decision, and ended by saying, basically, don't push me to agree with you because I won't. That strikes me as radically different from, "Well, I love you, but this is a huge disappointment to me." Sometimes it's good to hide your feelings from your kids, you know?--and find adults with whom you can sort them out. ...Anyway, Dallas also said that parents should ask themselves, "God, what are you trying to change in me?" To the extent that you can, that is not a bad question to ask yourself in any really hard situation in your relationships with others.

So that's who was there.

PULL APART THE DOUBLE HELIX LIKE A WISHBONE: I should say right now that I do believe there are "origin stories" for homosexuality, and that it might make sense to introspect and consider which aspects of your life may have influenced your sexual orientation. I wrote a short story inspired by the idea of a kaleidoscope of different possible origin stories or types of homosexuality. Some of them even have elements in common with Nicolosi's view; yeah, I have known some gay guys where it seemed that there might be Father Issues going on, perceptions of unwantedness, etc.

But there are all kinds of cases where family dynamics don't explain very much. And honestly--family dynamics are often a reductive and boring explanation for homosexuality.

Plus, the Love Won Out speakers were super defensive on the subject of origins, hammering on and on about how homosexuality isn't genetic. Why on earth does this even matter? All kinds of things have a genetic component. Even from the ex-gay perspective, there shouldn't be anything threatening about acknowledging that homosexuality has some kind of complex relation to genetics. People wouldn't avoid treatment for anxiety disorders, or stop going to AA, or give up on controlling their tempers, just because anxiety or alcoholism or anger has a genetic component. So I really have no idea why the idea of an inborn predisposition to homosexuality wigged these people out so bad.

ALL THIS USELESS BEAUTY: One of the reasons the family-dynamics origin stories (and the gender-dysfunction/salvation-through-pantyhose ones) don't really work for me is that they reduce what I experienced as an existential alienation into a psychological one. First off, I didn't feel "different from all the other girls"; I felt different from all the other humans. (I suspect boys' reactions are more likely to be gender-linked, though.) More importantly, in some respects my sexual orientation turned out to be the key that unlocked the world for me--the thing that made things make sense. I'll try to explain by posting what I had initially intended to be the last section of the NRO piece (but it was already way too long). I think this can serve as one possible Christian alternative to the ex-gay worldview. I would never claim this is the only possible alternative. But it responds to my sense that my experiences weren't just pointless, something to be overcome and forgotten as quickly as possible. So here it is (with links to earlier posts where I expand on some of this stuff):

If I had grown up heterosexual, I don't know if I would be Catholic today. There are two reasons for this: beauty, and alienation.

I was fascinated by Catholicism in part because it explained my intuition that the beauty of the world was not random but meaningful; that the little beauties of the world pointed beyond themselves to some great underlying loveliness. I had a few touchstone images of this beauty. Perhaps the one I still recall most vividly is the image of a woman's face--a young woman on whom I had a schoolgirl crush--a pale, distracted, inquisitive face in a darkened room. I strive, now, to see all people as I saw her then: as an image of God.

The alienation was even more central to my conversion. Throughout my childhood I had a strong sense that something had gone wrong--that I was not only different but broken. I connected this feeling to my sexual orientation, and developed intense shame. This despite being raised in an extraordinarily gay-positive household--I could be misremembering, but I'm not sure I even encountered stigma against homosexuality until I was in junior high.

The doctrine of original sin offered a startling and hopeful possibility: Suddenly the thing that made me different, my sexual orientation, was not the focus; my alienation was a distilled version of what every person experiences after the Fall. My orientation was a source of insight, not solely a burden or a political cause.

I don't think this is a universal story, applicable to everyone with same-sex attractions. But I do think it's more joyful, and more realistic, than the standard ex-gay narrative. It's also less politically useful--which is all to the good.

THE ROSES AND RAPTURES OF VIRTUE: And finally, I think it's 100% right to ask anyone who takes my position, So okay--I'm same-sex attracted, what do you think I should do? Are you just gonna do the whole "embrace the Cross, pray harder, read the Bible" routine?

Well, obviously, none of those are bad things to do, and all of them are necessary. (Although I think the better image would be "be more open in prayer" rather than "pray harder"; but maybe that's because I'm all about femme-y imagery, heh.) But I do think other things can be said that might illuminate how a Christian, chaste, same-sex attracted life can be sublime: joyful and fruitful as well as obedient.

(I should note that there is always an element of awestruck fear, suffering, or poignance in the sublime--that's what distinguishes it from the beautiful, and perhaps what distinguishes joy from happiness also.)

I wrote here about three possibilities for a sublime "gay" life: friendship, art, and personal holiness. Friendship to me is "shade and sweet water." Andrew Sullivan's book Love Undetectable has a lot of virtues and a lot of big flaws. But maybe the best thing about the book is how hardcore it is on the importance of friendship. For Christians--"Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends"--there's no such thing as "just friends."

You might look for a specific prayer that really helps you with this particular struggle. I really like the Anima Christi. It's all fleshy and protective and aflame with Christ's lovingkindness. Find prayers that calm and center you when you're angry with the Church or with other Christians, too. ...The rosary is really very cool because it combines repetitive prayer, easing you into contemplation, with a shifting series of images. You can pray through it and see how the different mysteries illuminate different aspects of whatever it is you're praying over. I am astonishingly bad about keeping my prayer life together. I'm actually really grateful for the opportunity to do the NRO piece: I knew it would be incredibly stressful, and in order to handle the emotional and spiritual effects I am finally, for the first time pretty much ever, going to daily Mass and receiving the Eucharist every day. That's just amazingly awesome and I can't believe I have been such a lazy bum about it up until now. The Church gives you the Body and Blood of Christ--that's just crazy awesome. How to pray the rosary; how to go to Confession (PDF).

Spend some time with saints' lives and the biographies or writings of people who inspire you. Dorothy Day's autobiography, The Long Loneliness, is one of my touchstones. ...The neat thing about saints, especially, is that they are so weird--they do such extreme, unexpected, sometimes problematic, wiggy things. And so you can see in them the wildness of the Catholic faith; the "biodiversity" if you like.

Here I mentioned music. I think for most people it will be music; for others, maybe, visual art. Generally it won't be literature, but something more sensual and pre- or supra-rational. And I have to admit: I do like Mozart's Requiem Mass very very much, but for me, when I am really struggling with anything relating to Gay Stuff, what brings me back to a sense of harmony (heh) is the Pet Shop Boys. I doubt they'd approve--but hey, they made the beautiful music, it's their fault.

And finally, I think anyone struggling with same-sex attractions would do well to practice solidarity with those in immediate spiritual and physical need. If you are Christian and same-sex attracted, go out there and perform the corporal works of mercy. Pick one and do it. (Prison visitation, for example.) Obviously, all Christians should do this! But I've found that it really helps me with anxiety and anger and general angst relating, specifically, to Gay Stuff.

These are just some things that I have found helpful. I welcome other people's thoughts; I don't pretend to have all the answers.

But I do know that God is not asking you to feel horrible about yourself. He wants you to be sheltered in Christ's wounds and in His love.

KIDS, DIVORCE, AND FAITH. Here I am in USA Today, with a piece heavily influenced by Elizabeth Marquardt's excellent book Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce. (my review of book) (book's website)

Meanwhile spring had come, beautiful, harmonious, without spring's anticipations and deceptions, one of those rare springs that bring joy to plants, animals and people alike. ...

Spring was a long time unfolding. During the last weeks of Lent the weather was clear and frosty. In the daytime it thawed in the sun, but at night it went down to seven below; there was such a crust that carts could go over it where there was no road. There was still snow at Easter. Then suddenly, on Easter Monday, a warm wind began to blow, dark clouds gathered, and for three days and three nights warm, heavy rain poured down. On Thursday the wind dropped, and a thick grey mist gathered, as if concealing the mysteries of the changes taking place in nature. Under the mist waters flowed, ice blocks cracked and moved off, the muddy, foaming streams ran quicker, and on the eve of Krasnaya Gorka the mist scattered, the dark clouds broke up into fleecy white ones, the sky cleared, and real spring unfolded. In the morning the bright sun rose and quickly ate up the thin ice covering the water, and the warm air was all atremble, filled with the vapours of the reviving earth. The old grass and the sprouting needles of new grass greened, the buds on the guelder-rose, the currants and the sticky, spiritous birches swelled, and on the willow, all sprinkled with golden catkins, the flitting, newly hatched bee buzzed. Invisible larks poured trills over the velvety green fields and the ice-covered stubble, the peewit wept over the hollows and marshes still filled with brown water; high up the cranes and geese flew with their spring honking. Cattle, patchy, moulted in all but a few places, lowed in the meadows, bow-legged lambs played around their bleating, shedding mothers, fleet-footed children ran over the drying paths covered with the prints of bare feet, the merry voices of women with their linen chattered by the pond, and from the yards came the knock of the peasants' axes, repairing ploughs and harrows. The real spring had come.
--Anna Karenina, tr. Pevear and Volonkhosky

'60s X-MEN COMICS WITHOUT PITY.

TWO LINKS: The Agitator:

Your post on the FDA and restaurants is pretty timely. My girlfriend just started a nutrition course for nursing school and the curriculum is super politicized. Here is a class that should be on topics like, the molecular structure of protein and how is it used by the body, but in her first week she has had assignments that include questions like, "Should sugarier foods be taxed?" and "If you had supreme power, what would you do to enforce the WTO nutrition guidelines?" She says the teacher and fellow students are all sold on the "health food is too expensive for the poor to eat" line, and you will never guess what movie is a required text.

more

And far more importantly, First Things has a great post up with many cool quotes from Cdl Schoenborn (and Pascal).

YOUTH MINISTRY: THE EARLY YEARS:

The Church Fathers had a distinctive approach to youth ministry.

Now, don't jump to conclusions. I haven't uncovered any evidence that St. Ambrose led teens on ski trips in the nearby Alps. Nor is there anything to suggest that St. Basil sponsored junior-high dances in Pontus. (There's not even a hint of a pizza party.) In fact, if you check all the documentary evidence from all the ancient patriarchates of the East and the West, you won't find a single bulletin announcement for a single parish youth group.

Yet the Fathers had enormous success in youth and young-adult ministry. Many of the early martyrs were teens, as were many of the Christians who took to the desert for the solitary life. There's ample evidence that a disproportionate number of conversions, too, came from the young and youngish age groups.

How did the Fathers do it?

They made wild promises.

They promised young people great things, like persecution, lower social status, public ridicule, severely limited employment opportunities, frequent fasting, a high risk of jail and torture, and maybe, just maybe, an early, violent death at the hands of their pagan rulers.

The Fathers looked young people in the eye and called them to live purely in the midst of a pornographic culture. They looked at some young men and women and boldly told them they had a calling to virginity. And it worked. Even the pagans noticed how well it worked.

more (via Amy Welborn)

KILLED DURING BOTCHED DRUG RAIDS: An update from The Agitator.

CALENDAR AGAINST TORTURE--various human-rights groups have designated June as Torture Awareness Month. This link gives you listings of many events, as well as information and email addresses of relevant people, and plans for an anti-torture Congressional lobbying day (June 26)--mostly relevant if you are American and do not live in D.C., but still, I expect that covers most of my readers. I will try to go to at least some of these events and report back.

If you go to any of the events, please let me know.

My long series of posts on torture starts here; you can scroll up, as well, for reader responses. Later this month I will try to do a very big resource post on Catholic teaching against torture, and will also post excerpts and maybe commentary on the section on torture from Elaine Scarry's study The Body in Pain. I am taking other reading recommendations as well.

Link via Unqualified Offerings.

LAYERS OF SYMBOLISM IN THE BIBLE. At Claw of the Conciliator. (With bonus American-lit discussion in comments!) Won't be new to people who, like, know more about the Bible than I do; but I liked it! (Sure, I grok some of this stuff--Catholic art and church architecture and liturgy are set up to show it to you--but other parallels were new to me.)

Hey, Elliot: Why not try Scott Hahn's Lamb's Supper? It maps the Mass onto the Book of Revelation. It is awesome (despite some of the usual apologetics-cheesiness in terms of punny chapter titles and such).

"Oh! how good to be your age," Anna went on. "I remember and know that blue mist, the same as in the mountains in Switzerland. The mist that envelops everything during the blissful time when childhood is just coming to an end, and the path away from that vast, cheerful and happy circle grows narrower and narrower, and you feel cheerful and eerie entering that suite of rooms, though it seems bright and beautiful.... Who hasn't gone through that?"
--Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volonkhosky

THOUGHTS ON INCENTIVES AND ORGAN DONATION from Virginia Postrel, who recently donated a kidney to a friend. Scroll down on her blog for more on the topic.

"SHOOTING J.R.": Amy Welborn has a short story in The New Pantagruel, here. I read an earlier version, which was really good, and look forward to getting a chance to read the final edit....

NO COMMENT:

By instinct and training, we journalists are suckers for political dissidents. Their struggles are the ultimate underdog stories, with prison terms or even death as the stakes. Editors reinforce reporters' instincts by awarding prime display to the act of protest in its many forms.

By instinct and training, we journalists are skeptics about religious activists. Their appeals are seen in newsrooms as special pleadings from organized interest groups. Editors reinforce reporters' instincts to treat religion politely but suspiciously. Ours is a secular trade honoring information more than faith.

This professional dichotomy ran through my mind during a recent conversation here with Yu Jie, a Chinese writer who says his political opposition to the Beijing dictatorship is deeply rooted in Christian faith. Yu insisted to me that Christianity will play the decisive role in bringing to China the freedoms that political protesters died demanding in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

more (my review of Jesus in Beijing is here)

TORTURE FLIGHTS CONTINUE:

Despite the Bush administration's insistence it neither participates nor condones--"in any form"--torture, the CIA continues to fly high-value al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects to interrogation centres which are beyond US jurisdiction--and where torture is routine.

Investigations by the European Union and human rights activists like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have done nothing to end the secret flights that weekly cross the globe with their human cargoes destined for torture chambers.

What happens on some of the flights has been graphically described by a senior British intelligence officer who spoke under a guarantee of anonymity.

more (via Anglican.tk)

PRAYER REQUEST--SANDRA MIESEL'S FAMILY.

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: The papers from the conference described in that Weekly Standard piece can be downloaded as PDFs here (link itself is HTML). Anyone concerned with religious-liberty issues should take a hard look at the current and potential conflicts.