Here’s a celebrated quote from Rick Santorum:  “The dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. .  .  It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. When I read this I pictured an eight year old  Read the Rest…

It’s the Christian holy week and I’ve been musing over my changing beliefs about Jesus, the point man for Christianity, the one whose mind so many people profess to know.  Actually we don’t understand what’s in our own minds, let alone anyone else’s.   But since I am one of two people who know the  Read the Rest…

I got into several lengthy conversations as a result of my post The Mud Hole of Religion(https://www.elenalouiserichmond.com/2012/03/the-mud-hole-of-religion/). While not actually throwing mud, we were pitching terms and labels (non-evangelical, anti-intellectual, liberal) apparently assuming that we knew what we meant and everyone understood the words in the same way. After it all fizzled away, I gave  Read the Rest…

My college roommate, Putzer, the attorney was with me for a few days this past weekend.  When I referred to the current political primaries as “March Madness,” she told me that phrase actually referred to basketball.  You could have fooled me. I’ve been following the political clown show via computer and inevitably I travel down  Read the Rest…

Doing a blog is like keeping a dream journal.  When you know you want to write, you tend to notice and remember images, anecdotes and embryonic ideas.  I have found that every week something rises to the surface and declares: “Write about me.”  Something funny happens, or a seed sprouts in a plot of ground  Read the Rest…

Last Saturday Joan, my friend with the theological chops, and I went to Seattle University’s “Search for Meaning Book Festival.” We had our tickets and were eager to attend right up to the day before it took place. Joan called on Friday night. “Who am I kidding?” she asked.  “I can’t spend the whole day  Read the Rest…

New Years Day I went to church without being paid.  Usually I trade off with another pianist who I will not name because he is famously shy.  January 1st wasn’t one of my Sundays, but I had had a quiet, relaxing week after the tumble of Christmas.  I thought I would enjoy the luxury of  Read the Rest…

“Writing a poem is an attention-getting act, so it might be worth asking whose attention are you getting and why?”  says Billy Collins in an interview in The Paris Review, Fall 2001.  Billy Collins, a rock star among American poets, knows something about attention. I’ve gotten almost more attention than I can stand this past  Read the Rest…

Yesterday morning the church choir sang an old-fashioned romantic piece of music that I first learned as a beginning voice student.  It’s called “Thanks Be to God” by Stanley Dickson and it has the word “bedight” in it.  That’s enough to mark it as a piece for Aunt Maud to sing for The Special Music  Read the Rest…

At a demonstration at Daniel Smith’s Artist Materials, I watched the watercolorist finish a painting in a 45 min demo.   Some cretin in the audience asked the price of her painting.  She said she would ask her full price, something like $300. “For a painting that took you 45 minutes?” he sneered. She was more  Read the Rest…