Commenting on Condoms
Recently, on a pilgrimage in Italy, I heard a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal relay in a homily one of the many stories of St.…
read moreSaturday in the Park
Sitting on a packed Greyhound bus on Friday night, somewhere between Port Authority and Union Station, I panicked. I couldn’t breathe; my cell phone was about to die. I was even thankful that the guy next to me was asleep and drooling; that was better than him witnessing the unmedicated panic attack of the person sitting beside him — a bipartisan, underemployed thirtysomething who had never been to a rally before. I’m claustrophobic and anxious about crowds, germs and public transportation. I’m as leery of the concept of Port-O-Potties as I am about attending events that require them. Why attend the “Rally to Restore Sanity” if it meant forsaking my own?
The thing is, I had waited such a long time for Saturday.
Those of us with panic disorder generally like to know what we’re in for beforehand. On the way to D.C., no one knew. Was this undefined and/or unprecedented rally going to be political or sarcastic?
Every possible scenario came to mind. I envisioned being screamed at by officers on horseback or trampled upon by angry hipsters wearing ironic Halloween costumes (the guy stapling Lipton Tea bags to his pea coat comes to mind). I imagined holistic hippies selling vegan muffins and self-published copies of Eat, Pray, Shop. I pictured people screaming at each other, being handcuffed and thrown against police cars, and a media circus capturing it all on camera. Cops meets Saturday Night Live meets C-SPAN.
Guess what? None of these fears were realized.
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Renewing the Spirit: A Catholic Guide to Overcoming Career Burnout
As the holiday season draws nearer, so do my responsibilities as a mother and college professor. Meeting work deadlines, traveling for business, attending committee meetings,…
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Community Service: How You Can Act on Catholic Social Teaching Every Day
During my many years of volunteer service (primarily in hunger relief organizations), I’ve witnessed a frustrating phenomenon. While people (admirably) tend to focus on opportunities…
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Bless Us, Oh Lord, for These Thy Gifts: The Holiness of Mealtimes
A few years ago, I was asked to sit on an alumnae panel at my high school to talk about life in college and beyond.…
read moreTaking it to the Streets
A group of artists are taking public discourse back to the old days, when all you needed to get your thoughts heard was a pen…
read more5 Ways to Celebrate Halloween Without Turning Tricks for Treats
It may sound blasphemous, or at least juvenile, but Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Not that it has anything on Christmas, but it’s definitely in my top three. When I started my life in the ”real world,” especially when I began working at Busted Halo®, I was shocked by some of my coworkers’ low opinions of this day of mirth and mischief.
I grew up in a family of theater people and always loved the fun of getting dressed up and playing crazy characters. So a day when such things were actually encouraged (and rewarded with candy) was always a boon for me (as opposed to the other 364 days when I was just a little strange). But, after spending my first Halloween in NYC I could begin to understand some of the resentment harbored by the Halloween haters against the Halloween hoes.
Halloween in New York is totally other. I have never seen a more drunken debaucherous crowd of naughty nurses, sexy kittens, and dirty [insert anything else you can think of]s in my life. It was disgusting, a little disturbing, but more than anything else, disheartening. What happened to the creative, good wholesome fun I had loved so much as a child?
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