Why I Am Not Trayvon Martin

Why I Am Not Trayvon Martin

I am Trayvon Martin.  When I heard about the killing of this young man, I felt crushed.  I felt enraged.  I thought about those friends, fellow parishioners, former students, who could have been victims of such fatal racial profiling. I read with sympathy about the...
Week in Review — April 16-22, 2012

Week in Review — April 16-22, 2012

This week, Brendan Busse does some preaching in the “Church of Pop,” reminding us that being born this way may be the beginning, but becoming perfect means loving the way we’re loved. Luckily, no one at TJP writes Bad Romances, but here’s what...
Whoever Has Ears Ought To Hear

Whoever Has Ears Ought To Hear

When teaching my 9 am philosophy class, I sometimes felt like the only civilized person in the room. The bodies of students, looking like extras from The Walking Dead, showed up, but their brains seemed to be missing. I imagined myself a philosopher-king, standing...
Born this Way: Being Ourselves; Becoming Perfect

Born this Way: Being Ourselves; Becoming Perfect

A while back I wrote a piece on the lie of worthlessness. More recently I wrote about the early seeds of my Jesuit vocation and how I came to realize that we’re meant to be exactly who we are. I received many heartfelt expressions of gratitude for those pieces. Many...
Whining in Public

Whining in Public

Last summer, Woody Allen released “Midnight in Paris,” his latest film and his love song to the City of Light. Having read no reviews before heading to the theatre, I was surprised that two of the film’s central characters were F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest...
Communion of Angst

Communion of Angst

If you’ve been a student in a Catholic school over the past half-century and you’ve spent any time studying the documents of Vatican II in English, chances are you used an edition of those documents edited by Walter Abbott, S.J.  It’s a paperback with a red cover,...
Lakes, Bells, and Easter Joy

Lakes, Bells, and Easter Joy

Minneapolis has a lot of paths around her lakes, and they attract an interesting mix of people on the weekends.  Young couples slowly push strollers as older kids rush ahead with the dog.  College-sweatered sweethearts enjoy an inexpensive date as joggers weave around...
Week in Review — April 16-22, 2012

Week in Review — April 9-15, 2012

Well, here at TJP we’ve kept Easter going (and going, and going … wait, is that what’s behind the Energizer bunny?) — and the celebration isn’t over yet. We kicked off last week with Perry Petrich’s take on The Hunger Games as a sign of hope,...
This Could Be Heaven or This Could Be Hell

This Could Be Heaven or This Could Be Hell

What does hell look like?  For me, it’s a seven-night Caribbean cruise. No fire, no brimstone, no wailing–just a paradisiacal seven-night Caribbean cruise.  David Foster Wallace planted my distaste for shipborne fun in the Caribbean sun in his essay A...