productivity – Feminism and Religion

yuzki-yuqing-wang-585257-unsplash As I type this post, I have another browser window open to track the path of Hurricane Florence due to make landfall in my area sometime later this week. Though I now live a few hours inland, I grew up in a coastal town, so I know how unpredictable storms like these can be. It’s entirely possible that we will get a bit of rain and wind and nothing else–and it’s just as possible that we’ll be spending quite some time without power. I pray that the latter is the absolute worst of what we all endure here.

In preparing for the storm and potential power outage, I was reminded of a time about a year ago when I was returning home after dropping off my daughter at school. As I approached the first stoplight on my route, I noticed that it wasn’t working. That’s odd, I thought. I drove on, navigating through another half dozen malfunctioning traffic lights before arriving safely back home only to discover that the power was out there too. Continue reading “Longing for (Dis)Connection by Katey Zeh”

It happens almost every Sunday night. I get a little tickle in my stomach thinking about the week ahead. And all I want to do is call my mom and whine, “Do I have to?” It’s about to be Monday.

The crazy thing is I love my work. But there’s something about what I’ve been calling “the infinite abyss of adulthood” that gets me all turned in on myself every time the week starts anew, the day comes up for air, and the next project begins. I wasn’t until I read Kathleen Norris’s The Cloister Walk that I realized there was a word for my spiritual malaise. It’s what the church fathers and mothers referred to as acedia, a sort of listlessness of the spirit. Norris also attributes this feeling of time’s expanse to our ”noonday demons.” The sun is high and a warm meal, glass of wine, and good night’s spoon is far off. The road of perseverance appears long and boring and repetitive under the deadpan heat. Continue reading “That’s Good, Do it Again by Erin Lane”