The View Up Here

Thank you for those who sent in more questions! Here are my best attempts at answering them. 1. "Anonymous" asked about celibacy , especially for a person who had led a sexually active life in the past. It's one thing to enter a celibate lifestyle as a virgin, it's another to have been married, etc. and then choose a life of consecrated celibacy. What about the aspect of being "best friends" with your husband - the emotional intimacy, private jokes, etc. How does one give that up or explain to a younger woman that she is giving all that up if she wants to be a nun? These are excellent points and questions, and they speak to a few truths about living the celibate life.  The celibate life is only a good thing if you are called to it! This is part of what is discerned by the woman and the proposed community. If someone who is called to live married life tries to live a celibate life, she probably will become bitter and won't be best able to liv...

This gem came across my email today in one of the many listservs I'm on. I've got the first two down pat, but still working on that last bit. The last couple of weeks have been whirl-windy. I finished my newest script last Monday (what a rush that was - 3 weeks flat!), cleaned my house on Tuesday, had an overnight guest on Wednesday (Rachel from Back East), then she left Thursday morning and that very same night I drove to LAX to pick up the husband. He spent a week here, and we had a glorious time at Disneyland, driving around all my new haunts (Crazy Russian Grocery Store, Starbucks down the street, and of course, St. Jude's church on Sunday). I also took him to the Griffith Park Observatory, and while it was closed, it was a clear enough day for him to get the full effect of the view in every direction (including the Hollywood sign). Monday we took care of our taxes (ugh...don't even... ugh) and Tuesday we took a train up to Ventura for the day. I've decided w...

It's been a busy couple of weeks! I've started a new screenplay, and taken a free lance gig proofing and copy-editing a short manuscript for a local author. I am also quite addicted to my Kindle. My brother gave it to me for Christmas of 2010, and it wasn't until last month that I started using it. I don't have room for lots of books here, so I decided to make use of this lovely device, and it has totally changed my world. Imagine bringing multiple books with you where ever you go, so that whatever you feel like reading is at your finger tips. Most of what I have loaded on here now reflects the new direction my spiritual path has taken. Of those, the most inspiring, important, and perfectly appropriate is Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian , by Paul Knitter . He identifies himself as a "Buddhist Christian" as I have come to do, and his treatise on "crossing over" from Buddhism to Christianity is invaluable. Of special note is what he calls...

I really wish my house were clean right now. But I don’t have the energy or the stomach to clean it. This is my perpetual dissonance. Wanting a clean apartment – wall-to-wall carpeting vacuumed, kitchen floor swept and mopped, dishes washed, counter tops cleared and spotless, cupboards organized and easy to access, furniture dusted, cobwebs whisked away, laundry folded and put away, winter turtlenecks and sweaters swapped for spring tops and summer shorts in the dressers, kitty litter changed, garbage all collected and tossed into the dumpster, patio swept, bathroom swept, mopped, scrubbed, disinfected, polished, bed linens changed, windows cleaned, desks organized, books rearranged. Now really – would I expect anyone to do that in one day? Of course not. But do I feel like shit because I can’t do it in one day? Naturally! I think I have this superhero image of my mother in the eyes of a six-year-old doing all this work in one day. Saturday, to be exact. The day that eve...