essays

[Touchstone, June 2005]

On January 24, 2005, I stood on the sidewalk of Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., as the March for Life surged by. There was a small band of pro-choice counter-protestors, and I positioned myself just past them because I was curious about how pro-lifers would react to their presence.

Now, I’m a convert from pro-choice to pro-life myself, and I have a strong interest in getting the two sides to understand each other’s positions more clearly. I was one of the founders of a group called The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice, which sponsored ongoing dialogue groups in twelve cities and held two national conferences. So I have known and talked with many pro-choicers.

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[Dallas Morning News, May 22, 2005]

For most of the 90's I was involved in an organization with a highly improbable name: The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice. Yes, in the days when "pro-life" (pardon, I mean hateful anti-choice fanatics) and "pro-choice (that is, hateful baby-killing fanatics) were about as opposite as they could be, in some dozen cities across the country they were sitting down, knee to knee, and trying to understand each other.

It was terrific. Now I have to admit that this was a self-selected group, and anyone who participated was the kind of pro-lifer or pro-choicer who would *want* to talk to someone on the other side.

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[National Review Online, May 19, 2005]

Well, that's a relief. This last of six films in the Star Wars saga, that monument of American myth-making, is finished - and it is good. There was danger that things would turn out differently, and the tale of these characters would have been eclipsed by the tale of their maker: a young man who started out brilliantly, then hesitated, then fumbled, and wound up being an object-lesson himself. Instead, the applause George Lucas receives for "Revenge of the Sith" will be genuine and sincere. That's got to be gratifying to him, and a relief to us.

Readers who have a vague sense that there have been some movies called "Star Wars" (or is it "Star Trek"? Maybe that's on TV) should prepare to get further confused.

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[Beliefnet, May 9, 2005]

When I was a kid, I had no clear idea of what the Holy Ghost was for. He seemed boring and dowdy, a leftover appendage to the Trinity. Maybe it was because the Holy Ghost was described as the Love between the Father and Son. Love is great, but it isn't a *Person*. The Father and Son came first, united and powerful, and then the Holy Ghost dawdled after, "proceeding" (whatever that means) from both, as if he were an afterthought. Pretty ghostly. I went to my Catholic Confirmation at the age of 12 prepared to receive this vague presence, feeling tensely expectant and - nothing happened. Bummer.

Flash forward a decade to the mid-70's. After some unbelieving years I had returned to Christianity, and my husband and I were students at an Episcopal seminary near Washington, DC.

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