I approach religion as something I want to live with (and you will say, "No, I get it, but why?"), and you approach it as something you want to make sense of.
Category: Mental Health
Interlude: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Please and thank you always write to me at mbevel at gmail dot com about Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and also any other play in the history of plays.
The Book I’m Not Reading
I own a not insignificant number of copies of Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, the best novel ever written in the English language. As a Christian who is saved in Christ (I think?), this fact, and God's eternal love, are the two things I can depend on.
Suffering, Part 2: Good Suffering
There are two kinds of suffering in the world: useful suffering, which is impermanent, and performative suffering, which helps no one.
“I battled the Holy Ghost once on the laundry porch”
My mom is 73 this year, pocked with Alzheimer's, haunted by ghosts and it can be tough to suss out from her description how many are phantoms of the mind, how many are figments of her imagination, and how many, if any, are visitors from some past Other Side. If they have a message for her, it must be frustrating. She won't remember it. "Well, your brother Michael's dead," she explained to my brother. This was after she and I had talked on the phone.
I'm going to tell a story about her, and it's a Gentlemen's Agreement story where we're going to agree, thee and me, that I am telling you the truth.
Mike Bevel 