Politics, Activism, and Identity (Part III: Activism)

Continued from Part II: Identity

Trump's election compelled me to recall my identity as an activist. Oh joy, I get to wander down the memory lane of young adulthood, something I'm doing a lot lately, so at least there's that economy of self-inquiry.

Activism
From my late teens through my late thirties, I was outraged about prejudice and discrimination in every possible form. The big systemic social inequality "isms" for sure, but that's not all. During the mid-1980s I was, for example, also enraged by things like pitiful menu choices for vegans. Equal opportunity outrage! When it came to activism, I was at times simultaneously fearless and naive but nevertheless coachable...about activism. Maybe not so naive, given what I learned from my parents.

For one thing, I was raised to support labor strikes. My father's grandfather, Rabbi Moses Gold, was a founder of the Workmen's Circle. My mother boycotted grapes from 1965 through 1971, even though the Delano Grape Strike was settled in 1970. Looking back, I'm surprised we didn't have a portrait of Cesar Chavez in our dining room. Crossing a line of picketing workers was unthinkable. Of course, I became the only clerical worker to ever walk with AT&T linemen during a wildcat strike in 1973. I also discovered Saul Alinsky.

You didn't have to persuade me that black lives mattered, either during the 1960s or in 2013 when the #blacklivesmatter Movement was founded. The coalition between blacks and Jews was strong and seemingly unbreakable during the 1950s and for much of the 1960s. My parents belonged to the NAACP which, in case you don't already know, had long worked in coalition with the ADL (aka, Jewish Anti-Defamation League). Looking back, I'm surprised we didn't have a portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in our living room. Of course, I became a non-voting member of my (first) college's Black Student Union in 1971.

Long before Trump arrived on the political scene with his white nationalist storm troopers, I'd realized this history of shared causes and activism, not to mention the resurgence of black antisemitism during the late 1960s, was either lost or being studiously ignored. What, if anything, did I want to do about that? Or, more accurately, what would I need to do before I could do anything about that?

Next on my list of activist passions? The Vietnam War. Like everyone else in my generational cohort, the Vietnam War was intensely personal. Protests at the Democratic National Convention in 1968, draft number lotteries in 1969, and the Kent State Massacre in 1970 contributed to my formation as a student activist. Of course, I organized a teach-in instead of blowing up buildings on my (first) college campus.

By the time I returned to another college after dropping out of the first one, Nixon had been elected, his impeachment hearings had begun, and he had resigned the presidency. Like so many outraged Sociology majors and wannabe Leftist intellectual-activists, I went from liberal Democrat to Marxist, with a side helping of Bakunin.

Women's rights and gay rights* arrived on my personal radar through the gateway of employment discrimination. Getting fired for organizing women clerical workers and suing a small multinational company was one glorious wake-up call in 1976. Of course, that involved the New York District Office of the EEOC (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). Of course, I handled the case pro se for the first two years.

The focus of my scholarly work during and after graduate school would provide another wake-up call. Like so many women in graduate school at that time, I went from Marxist to Socialist Feminist to Radical Feminist to Lesbian Feminist to something I couldn't and wouldn't shove into a category. Later, in response to anyone's shock and awe, I'd quip that my intellectual-activist world was zoned for lavender. Of course, I was denied tenure in 1985.**  I didn't fight it. I was exhausted and would eventually ditch everything to focus on my nascent spiritual life. 

Ah, memories...those memories. Lots of righteous anger but also lots of exuberance and joyful exhaustion, especially after protest marches monitored by SWAT teams. All great and groovy, but now it's 2017. Now what? 

There will always be more for me to remember and think about, but I'm having T(hat)F(eeling)W(hen) time is of the essence. It's time to brush-up hard-learned and hard-earned skills. Time to infuse activism with faith and what I discovered during the spiritual journey of middle adulthood. While I'm ready to tell more stories and believe storytelling is necessary, I'm also aware that it's insufficient. Storytelling must inspire action—starting with mine, of course. 

Posted to Twitter by @CarolSnowBooks

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Do not send hate mail, that's what it was called during the 1970s. Also, transgender people were called transsexuals; "dyke" and "queer" were considered epithets with the "n" word and "lipstick lesbians" were regarded with disdain. Do feel free to ask me about in-group bickering among organizers of the NYC Gay Pride March 1976.

** I literally laugh-snorted when, circa 1998, I stumbled upon a paper copy of my curriculum vitae. How had I ever imagined I'd receive academic tenure? Almost every publication had some combination of the words sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, and patriarchy in its title.

Politics, Identity, and Activism (Part II: Identity)

Continuing from Part I: Politics

What happened next was feeling an unexpectedly visceral need to reexamine my multiple and often competing identities in the domain of faith.

Identity

That one of my favorite hymns is the Shaker classic, "Tis the Gift to be Simple" demonstrates my ability to infuse wishful thinking with irony. When it comes to faith-based identity, mine is anything but simple and involves the dubious gift of head-spinning turning, turning.

Longtime readers already know this about me because every book I've published includes peeking into the varieties of my religious experiences and spiritual encounters.* Still, here's a synopsis of my identities:

• I'm a Jew who follows the Way of Jesus because of its emphasis on repairing the world through acts of social justice and gathering in chavurot (fellowship).

• I'm a church communications consultant who was spiritual but not religious long before SBNR became a recognized acronym circa 2001.

• I'm becoming one of "the Dones" (aka, been there, done that, and done with the institutional church as a result) while also welcoming almost every opportunity to make the church better.

• I'm an author whose books with Catholic publishers get bragworthy endorsements from leadership in mainline Protestant churches.

With one exception, nothing new here. The exception? Becoming one of the Dones. But when it comes to that, I seem to be in good and sacred, albeit agonized, company. Pretty soon I'll lose count of how many clergy have confessed, usually through private channels (e.g., DM on Twitter), their feelings of being done with church-the-building.

These clerics are typically ones who have served in pulpit ministry for eight to fifteen years. Many are what's known as "late vocation" clergy because they had previous careers in the secular world. Almost without exception, they tell me how they encourage wannabe pastors to explore other ways to fulfill a felt call to ministry. (To be written at another time and place: my own story about discerning what I initially thought was a call to ordination.)

So if I've been managing these multiple identities for decades, what's the problem? My problem seems to be handling my identities a lot more gracefully these days, but I'm not convinced that I can—or should.

Turns out that during this time of unbridled anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, racism, and xenophobia what gets posted by some Christian clergy and most Jewish clergy often differs radically in content and tone. I didn't expect that, nor did I expect my gut-level reaction to noticing those differences.

Other than reconfiguring who shows up in my Tweetdeck columns, what to do about this latest challenge to identity?

I typically introduce myself during faith (church) community Twitter chats as having a "multiple spirituality disorder" and as being "fiercely ecumenical." Is it time to add "less Jew-ish and more Jew" or will that become evident by my activism? And what does it matter anyway? Aren't oppressors, not allies, the ones who keep track?

To be continued but meanwhile, let us pray...

To bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed

To turn, turn, will be our delight

'Til by turning, turning, we come round right

* As I often quip, "Don't get mad, get published." Being irked by the woeful lack of knowledge about Judaism among (some/too many) Christians, led to me writing, Why Is There a Menorah On The Altar: The Jewish Roots of Christian Worship. Further irked to report that this book never quite found an audience of readers.

Why I'm Back to Blogging (On a Personal Blog)

Hello again!
When last we heard from me back in 2015, I was explaining my decision to ditch blogging. I thought it would be a permanent hiatus. It's not because here I am, back to blogging.

Most of my reasons for going on hiatus remain true, albeit slightly tweaked. Read on.

Twitter is still my go-to platform for news and conversation.
If you follow me on Twitter (@meredithgould) you've probably noticed a gradual shift in focus. Since the presidential election, I've become more focused on #digitalactivism and #deliberatekindness. (I'll write more about my call to digital activism in another post.) I still specialize in curating content with (and without) commentary.

Medium has become my primary place for writing about writing.
On Medium (http://medium.com/@meredithgould) I write about writing. After experimenting with a few other topics, I discovered my sweet spot and contribute to The Writing Cooperative.

As for blogging...
Turns out I was simultaneously right and wrong about the value--to me--of actively maintaining a personal blogging. But ever the empiricist, I needed to test this hypothesis.

I was right because: Since 2015, I've written two books for Liturgical Press. Desperately Seeking Spirituality: A Field Guide to Practice was published in 2016. The publication date for Transcending Generations: A Field Guide to Collaboration in Church is August 15, 2017. Last month, a new edition of Deliberate Acts of Kindness: A Field Guide to Service as a Spiritual Practice was published by Clear Faith Publishing. I managed to accomplish this without futzing with ideas and content on my personal blog.

I was wrong because: I underestimated the value of blogging to keep my writing pump primed. Standard advice to writers is to write every day. I do, in fact, write every day but not always the type of writing that builds book-writing muscles. Yippee! A new hypothesis to test. Hence, back to blogging.

I still believe I'm right about group blogs for organizations because: They're a labor intensive nightmare for whoever is charged with maintaing editorial quality control.

And so here I am, back to blogging. Because I always have more to say. 

About this blog and shifting the conversation elsewhere online...

Oh right, I have a blog. This one. The one I haven't posted any written content to since January 4th. And the only reason I know that is because I just looked it up. 

I looked for the last post with text, read it, and saw that I wrote about "being present one day at a time...each hour or moment-to-moment, if that's all I can muster." Clearly, all that being present did not include blogging. Now on my mind, this question: When will it?

At this juncture I'm not sure when I'll get back to this social media platform. If ever. So much has changed since I started blogging in 2007. Blogging platforms have died (e.g., Typepad) and others have emerged (e.g., Tumblr). Blogging itself has gone through some changes. 

Years ago, long form posts, sometimes pushing 2,000 words were acceptable if not normative. By 2010-ish, micro-blogging platforms like Facebook and Twitter, plus changes in hardware, eventually rendered massive word counts as intolerable as they were unreadable on certain digital devices. 

I was fine with all these changes, including the ascendency of visual social media like Pinterest and Instagram. Having started out as a visual artist, I became a very happy camper indeed when it became perfectly acceptable to have blog posts dominated by images rather than text. Tumblr is the blogging platform responsible for that shift. I set up a Tumblr blog and then did exactly nothing with it because I had this one.

There's more to this transition from blogging, including but not limited to these current realities:

• Twitter allows swift access to and the possibility of conversation with more people than my blog could ever generate.
• Facebook provides a platform for sharing thoughts, insights, and ridiculousness with even more space than allowed via Twitter, plus see first point above.
• Both Twitter and Facebook allow me to choose when and how to share my Instagram pics with a slightly different group of connections.
• Books are my long form, a revelation I've finally arrived at as I begin my tenth and another with Liturgical Press. 
• Public blogging no longer functions well, for me, as the place to futz around with book content.
• Any future quasi-long form writing I might want to do online would probably be better launched from Medium.

Still, I'm loathe to completely shut down this online diary (the original point of blogging) of my interior and exterior meanderings over the years, so I won't. Instead, here's where you'll find me:

• I'm sticking with Twitter as my personal comedy club and go-to place for marketing communications intel in the worlds of healthcare and church. Follow me on Twitter (@meredithgould) to find curated content about #chsocm (Church Social Media), #hlthsp (Health and Spirituality), and lively exchanges with tweeps from my overlapping worlds of interest.
• I've set up a Facebook Author Page to update readers about book releases and events, with occasional whining about the process of book writing and the world of publishing. Please "Like" me there.
• For all other longer-than-Twitter observations plus other stuff (but rarely links to articles because those I post on Twitter), "Friend/Follow" my Meredith Gould profile.
• To see what the "eye" cultivated by decades of formal art training zooms in on, follow me on my Instagram account.

Next Advent (November 29-December 24, 2015), Schlep of the Magi will show up on FB and possibly on Instagram.

So there you have it, dear readers. I do hope you'll connect with me via other social networking platforms. Your comments and support over the years have been a blessing that, not to be greedy, I'd love to continue receiving.

An Author's Life: How to Tell Fact From Fiction

Oh let's not call it procrastination. Instead, let's call it creative warm-ups. Jumping jacks in place. While slumped in a desk chair and staring at a computer monitor.

To be a bit more accurate and only slightly less dramatic, I was sorting through seven years of blog posts to...oh, what the hell does it matter? I wasn't writing what I'm supposed to be writing, although I was thinking about it. No news there, because I'll be thinking about the damn thing (aka, manuscript) until I turn it in. Of course, I do need to write it first. There is that.

I digress. See? Not procrastinating! Digressing! A creative detour...sorting through blog posts and stumbling upon a virtual pile of unpublished posts. Some happen to be exactly what I'm supposed to be writing, evidence that I've been thinking about this stuff for ages upon ages.

Along the way I rediscovered this quote from an interview with Hilary Mantel. Mantel, who won the Booker Prize twice, is best known for her historical novels about Thomas Cromwell: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (Wolf Hall, Book 2). I loved both, but loved even more her novel about the French Revolution, A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel. It's so complex and dark that it makes what Alexandre Dumas and Charles Dickens wrote seem like light-hearted Disneyfied fairy tales about the best and worst of times.

I digress...again! But not really, because here's how I tie it all together: I write nonfiction. I've always written nonfiction (plus dismal adolescent poetry) for two major reasons. First, I simply don't "get" the process of writing a novel. Second, I've learned that I simply cannot make up the stuff that I have and continue to experience.

And so, imagine my delight to stumble upon what Mantel said about distinguishing fact from fiction. Not kidding, imagine my delight. Whatever you're able to imagine is a probably a true fact.

        

An Author's Life: I'm Declaring the Arrival of Autumn. Right Now.

Earlier this summer, my whimpering and whinging about not quite hunkering down to write my new book was met with sympathetic clucking from some and derisive-yet-loving laugh snorts by others.

Easy to distinguish between the cluckers and laugh-snorters. The laugh-snorters are those who have known me for many years; hardy souls who have observed my writing process throughout the course of writing -- or not writing and bitching about not writing -- previous books.

I thank God for these dearly beloved friends whose FFS response yanks me back to this reality: I have never never ever ever written book stuff during the summer months. Never. Ever. Never ever. These friends remind me that I've always spent the summer gardening (or did, when I had a garden), reading novels, binge watching mindless crap, avoiding sunlight, and praying for cloudy days.

You'd think I'd know this, but apparently it takes a mini-village to calm me the F down, to remind me how summer is my fallow season, that I come to life during the Fall when everything else starts dying. It's true. I perk right up when I see the green-gold of twilight happening earlier; when I hear cicadas chirr at a slower pace. Instead of searching for a cave to crawl into for the winter, I stumble out of the one I've created to escape summer.

There are several official ways to mark the beginning of Autumn. For most (in the USofA) it's Labor Day (September 1) and when the school year begins, even if school hasn't been attended for decades. Purists (of some sort) might insist on waiting for the Autumnal equinox on September 23.

But the air has been cool with crisp edges for many consecutive days. My Thai basil has gone to flower. The plane trees have been shedding bark for weeks. This morning I woke up feeling words forming sentences and paragraphs, which I welcomed as yet another sign that this ghastly season known as summer is finally coming to an end. Also, I suddenly have a hankering for meatloaf and baked potatoes.

So that's it, then. I'm declaring the arrival of Autumn and will stop bitching about not writing. Laugh snorts? Anyone?

What I'll Be Doing On My Summer Not-Vacation...and Beyond

WTW?

Dear faithful and steadfast* readers,

Y'know how I always vow that I'm never ever ever no way ever going to write another book? It's such an absurd and uber-dramatic vow that I really ought to stop making. 

I've just signed another book contract with Liturgical Press. The working title is so boring I almost don't want to trot it out, but here it is [Snooooooze Alert! Receiving suggestions for something better!] Engaging Spiritual Practice: A Guide for 21st Century Seekers. 

This will be my guide for self-identified seekers who have tried some, many or even all of the classic spiritual practices and then, with no shortage of frustration, given up on some, many, or even all of them. 

Hand-to-heart-and-God, I proposed this long before knowing about or reading Never Pray Again, a book I recently reviewed on this blog. My book will, of course, be different (although the authors of Never Pray Again and I do share a certain je ne sais quoi writing style.)

Manuscript due...soon. Time management should be interesting, given my Mayo Clinic for Social Media responsibilities (see: new #MCCSM gig) and upcoming participation on a panel at the Stanford MedX conference in September.

See the picture posted above this text? That's a photo of my husband, Dan Webster, witnessing my signing of the Lit Press contract, artistically rendered (using Ribbet.com) to capture my interior experience of...everything.

*Steadfast relative to reading my stuff.

An Author's Life: Sanity? Insanity? Book Writing Involves Embracing Both

Not to jinx myself, but I might be starting my next book. Or, to step out of denial for a change, I've apparently already started my next book.

Signs that even I cannot ignore include trudging through these (not 14, thank God) Stations of the Book Writing Cross:

• cycling through my ritualized insistence that I'll never ever ever write another book. Years ago, I'd cling to this delusion for at least a year after a book was published. My manuscript for The Social Media Gospel was submitted to Liturgical Press on January 2, 2013 and by January 7, I was ruminating about the next book. 

• rearranging book shelves to reflect emerging realities. Books I've used during the previous book's writing process are either moved to a distant shelf, shipped to friends who might want them, or schlepped to The Book Thing. I then re-populate the bookshelves in my sight line with whatever I'm diving into.

• going to sleep and waking up with words, phrases, sentences demanding attention. Being a visual-kinesthetic learner, I must physically write things down, although to make the world a safer place, I do dictate into Google Keep while driving. Every room in my home becomes littered with scraps of paper on which I've scrawled barely legible notes, most of which I end up throwing out. 

• becoming (more) remote, unavailable, and cranky. I wander around wearing ear plugs, flop onto my bed and stare into middle-distance, read and watch brain candy, announce that I feel, "off." This announcement generates knowing laughter laced with groans from those who know me well.

• wanting to do nothing but write, then taking on extra client work to avoid writing, and then bitching about not having time to write.

• researching and reaching out to possible publishers, even if I know the book is such a niche title that I'll have to self-publish (e.g., Come to the Table: A Passover Seder for Parish Use and Getting #Married:Using Social Media to Celebrate the Sacred.)

• playing around with working titles that are destined to change. I've already tallied votes for what I believe is a keeper title for my memoir-ish exploration of something I've been involved with since childhood.

So, dear readers, now you know what's currently happening in this author's life. What's that? You want to know the title?

Here it is: Death: A Love Story. 

Details to come...in this lifetime.

Quote du Jour (Writing Department): "It's like a major illness..."

Found this eternal truth about book writing

in the Authors Guild Bulletin (Summer 2007)

Image created with the PicMonkey photo editor.

The Social Media Gospel: My Author Copies Arrive!

Of course I'd shoot a Vine video

of opening the carton

 of author copies!

 

And the thrill of doing so has not faded, nor have 

I become jaded about the gift of being able to write

and work with great publishers. Blessed by my

experience with the Liturgical Press team.

Habemus Book Cover! The Social Media Gospel: Sharing the Good News In New Ways

The Social Media Gospel: 

Sharing the Good News in New Ways

Foreword by The Rev. David L. Hansen (@Rev_David)

Soon and Very Soon!

July 2013

from Liturgical Press

This fabulous cover designed by Stefan Killen.
Grateful to Liturgical Press for welcoming
my creative direction and ongoing input.

Habemus Book Title! The Social Media Gospel: Sharing the Good News . . .

The Social Media Gospel: 

Sharing the Good News in New Ways

forthcoming July 2013*

from Liturgical Press**

How many Christians did it take to come up with this book title? Lots! But that's because I'm:

1. deeply committed to working ecumenically, 
2. use social media to engage with people from all denominations, and 
3. understand the power of crowd-sourcing.

In some instances as many as three folks from these denominations opined about title options: Episcopal Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ECLA), Presbyterian Church USA, PCA Presbyterian, Roman Catholic Church, and United Methodist Church.

This note from the publisher, "Wooooo hooooo! And I love your Vatican II ecumenical process!"

Some good titles landed on the proverbial cutting room floor, but these things happen when majority rules. All glory, honor, and praise to those whose #1 choice wasn't chosen.

More to come about the book's content (e.g., excerpts) and how to pre-order. You already know that I'd love to visit your church, right? More information about what I offer at my website: meredithgould.com.

* Unless, by some miracle, the production process gets goosed.

** On my publishing bucket list for years.

An Author's Life: I Submit

Catchy n' clever blog title, eh? Bet you can figure out that I'm referring to manuscript submission. The deadline was January 1 and I put the thing into DropBox on January 2.

To my father of blessed memory I owe my ability to meet deadlines. He tore up my fifth grade Blue Whale report saying, "This will teach you to leave something until the last minute." Yes, Mommie Dearest had a counterpart. Growing up was so . . . character building.

An alternate lede for this post: Turkeys are done; people are finished. The manuscript is finished; I'm done. Pretty much. What's next?

What's next is always a major clean-a-thon as well as creating and slamming through a punch list of everything I've neglected while writing or avoiding writing. The punch list includes activities like spraying WD-40 into door hinges, assembling tax records, thinking about getting back to yoga.

Already accomplished: vacuuming out the innards of my computer's tower, watching all of "Homeland," reading novels and picking up 15 more at The Book Thing this past Saturday, wandering in for much-needed acupuncture. More about the continuing apnea adventures in a future post.

True to form, I've begged loved ones to slap me upside the head if I ever ever ever talk about writing another book. True to form, I'm thinking about the next book. True to form, loved ones are laughing too hard to smack me.

An Author's Life: Does This Manuscript Make Me Look Fat?

Yeah, I have "food issues."  It's something I discovered after getting into 12-step recovery for something(s) else.  Call it the Whac-A-Mole theory of addiction. Never did I want to eat so much for no good reason as when I finally decided to stop [fill in blank].

When it comes to food, which is impossible to quit altogether, things really get dicey when there really is an alleged good reason for indiscriminate, mindless over-eating to self-soothe. Writing a book is one of those bogus good reasons. I'm now two-thirds and five pounds into this latest effort.

I am such a liar.

Truth be told,  I'm only slightly over one-third done with this manuscript and more like eight pounds heavier. Plus, I've restored caffeinated coffee to my writing regimen. At this rate, I'll be ready for detox and a new wardrobe by January.

You can help by keeping me in prayer . . . and sending dark chocolate.

An Author's Life: Beginning Again Again*

This post has been on my list of Posts to Write for a while, but before hunkering down tonight, I had to do one more thing. I reread all previous ones tagged "author" to get a sense of my own twisted history. Sentimental journey, for sure.

Four years ago, I invoked the pregnancy metaphor to write about book dedications and the ridiculousness (read: stupidity) of writing one book after another.

Such a great metaphor, here it is again: Having recently endured two book miscarriages, I needed to wait a few months before announcing that I'm expecting a new book to be out this Spring. It will be my ninth.

I wanted to wait until a mutually-acceptable contract was signed (done!), until I'd connected with my new editor (done!), and until I'd gotten far enough into writing to fall in love with this new manuscript, even when it's giving me heartburn and sleepless nights. Manuscript due: January 1, 2013. Publisher: Liturgical Press. Working title: Building Church and Faith With Social Media: Embracing a Future That's Already Here.

So there you have it, news about this author's life as well as an explanation for skimpy posting on this blog.

Had to laugh (at myself) as I read through my previous posts about my writing rituals. Yes, my nails are once again clipped down to power-typing length and our refrigerator is stocked with salami. For this book I've switched from Diet Cream to Diet Orange soda; from Cheez Doodles to corn chips. This change in protocol seems to be working so far.



*I've stopped numbering these posts for two reasons: 1) I've lost count; and 2) I stink at Roman numerals.

What I'm Reading

While everyone else is busy reading The Hunger Games, I've been mucking around with other dystopian-esque texts.

Last month I slammed through all 500+ pages of Michael Korda's memorable memoir, Another Life: A Memoir of Other People, which I lugged home in hardcover from The Book Thing. It's a page-turner account of Korda's decades in the publishing industry that includes great dish (is that slang still used?) about high maintenance authors. His chapter about Jacqueline Susann is scary-funny-juicy.

What makes this romp a dystopian text? For years I've been comparing the imploding mess known as traditional trade publishing with what has (deservedly) happened to the financial services industry. Korda's memoir affirms my every suspicion by revealing how the publishing industry sowed the seeds of its self-destruction during the 1960s and by the 1980s, had created a living hell for authors and real editors.

From there, I segued into reading A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church by Rembert G. Weakland, OSB, a frank memoir that spans nearly 60 years of his involvement with the Roman Catholic Church. Weakland's writing isn't nearly as engaging as Korda's, but that almost doesn't matter. The content is jaw-dropping enough without literary embellishment.

I've only read as far as chapter 10, "Ministering in the Last Years of Pope Paul VI (Rome 1973-1977), but that's far enough along to see how quickly and insidiously the Curia scrambled to regain autocratic dominance after the Second Vatican Council adjourned. Weakland's memoir affirms my worst suspicious about the institutional church.

Does this make me an Educated Seeker or a Glutton for Punishment? Or is that a distinction without a difference?

An Author's Life: Not Weathering Weather Well

These crocuses? Saw them during a walk I took last week. They're lovely harbingers of spring and you'd think I'd be glad and grateful for their perky appearance. I am not. In fact I was somewhat bummed to see them and the daffodils that started blooming a few days ago.

What's my problem? I like seasons. I especially like winter because of its promise of deep dark snowy quiet. Like? Actually, I need an extended period of deep dark snowy quiet to write. That hasn't happened this year in Baltimore. No snow. None.

Praying for snow isn't working, so I might have to resort to magic: packing up humidifiers, storing down comforters, putting away sweaters, and getting out summer clothes. Yes, I am that desperate for snowfall.

The Book Thing in Baltimore

What do writers do to relax? This one looks for books to read. And although I love my Kindle, I'm still smitten by the feel and heft of books. Plus, there will always be a special place in my heart for previously owned books and the places that give them another chance to end up on someone's bookshelf.

 The Book Thing* in Baltimore is one of those places. It's a dusty, dim bit of paradise for book lovers a short drive from my apartment that has taken in and redistributed books for over a decade. Nothing is shelved in any discernible order, which makes for some entertaining juxtapositions. Best of all, the books are free for the taking and schlepping.

Visitors may take as many books as they want. It's not unusual to see bibliophiles carrying out more than one carton piled high and overflowing with books. The last time I was there, I overheard one guy muttering, "My wife is going to kill me" as he staggered out under quite the haul. I generously offered to follow him home to help her. Like I should talk.

I've been known to bring home battered books like people bring home birds with broken wings, which is why I've been careful to limit my visits to The Book Thing. I've been there only three times since moving to Baltimore in 2010.

On my first trip, I dropped off three cartons of books and brought home nothing but a sinus headache.

The second time, I dropped off nothing and brought home two books, hardbound copies of  A New Pentecost? by Cardinal Suenens and The Secular City by Harvey Cox.

This past Sunday I returned one book unread (The Secular City) and spent over an hour reading titles, occasionally pulling out a book to look at more closely. This generated a mash-up of emotions -- nostalgia while wandering through stacks of novels; less-than-pleasant feelings in the Sociology and Women's Studies sections upon seeing ditched copies of books I was assigned during graduate school and ones I assigned during my decade in academia.

I brought home six book, including Michael Korda's 530-page memoir of his time in the publishing industry, Another Life: A Memoir of Other People and a copy of the hymnal and service book, Worship that was probably pilfered from a parish.

Only six books!  Remarkable restraint, I thought. Thank God The Book Thing is only open on weekends.


*The pictures on The Book Thing website do not accurately convey the dusty dimness of it all, nor the dizzying aroma of old books.

Friday (Final) Stop on the Blog Tour for Getting #Married

Whew, it's Friday! And this week's virtual book tour has featured interviews all over the blogosphere. Today's interview about Getting #Married: Using Social Media to Celebrate the Sacred is on the New Media Project's blog. You can read it here.

Another set of great and different questions, including one about what benefits I'd hoped to gain by using social media so extensively. But my favorite question from these folks was this: "Did you use social media on your honeymoon, too?"

Read the interview to find out my answer!

Getting tired of the shameless self-promotion of my new book? Hang in there! Back to regular blogging -- whatever the h-e-double hockey stix that is -- next week. Just be grateful I'm not an NPR station bombarding you with pleas for money every 15 minutes!