This week the United Methodist Church voted to adopt what is called the "Traditional Plan" for moving forward into this century of its history. The plan entrenches the position that gay people can't be ordained or married, and opens the door for further discriminatory measures to come. (There's been plenty of coverage of what unfolded which can easily be googled, in case you want more detail.) I wrote these words on the day this unfolded: We left a Methodist Church last year

I'm working on a new book; a series of meditations about love, sex, and desire. Here's a draft of one entry: Have you ever wondered what will happen to our desires when we leave this world; desires which are often tarnished with a verdigris of sin? My first thought was that they will burn away like dross as our metal is purified. But that is too simple, and too dismissive of beauty. Then I wondered if these desires might get consumed by the burning fire of love for God; the b

I'm not sure what your experience has been like, but for most of my life, Valentine's Day has been a tricky holiday. The love I lived was disordered and unhappy, which made a day set up to worship a sentimental idol of romance painful and fraught with interpersonal landmines. My story has a happy ending; the companion my soul dreamed of appeared. She's been working for a decade to heal my lifetime of wounded ideas about love. Valentine's Day still sparks pain, and I struggle