Blog
January 17, 2021
The razor’s edge of forgiveness “Forgive your enemies. “ Since forgiveness was just as unnatural 2100 years ago as it now, the Apostle Peter seeks to bind it. You will recall that Peter was a pious Jew and knew the Mosaic law. The law that from Levitcus, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and in both Deuteronomy and Exodus denounced the hatred of fellow country men “in your heart,” and commanded the loving of “even the stranger.” And yet, Peter asked, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I […]
January 10, 2021
Baptism: His and Ours If we’re under the age of fifty and are, or were, a Christian, we have been baptized. Most likely, our parents made the decision for us when we were infants. But in this “post-Christian era”, more and more parents choose not to baptize their child. The stated reasons vary, but these are a sample of those I have been told and read. We don’t need church to be spiritual. We can pray anywhere. The woods, mountain or ocean is our chapel. Nature is my church. I was brainwashed as Catholic or evangelical Christian and I want […]
January 3, 2021
In desperate need of fatherhood Ours is a world in desperate need of fatherhood. A quick online search reveals the startling rise of single motherhood here in the US and in the world. Soberly revealing our need for heavenly intervention for our fatherless families and overburdened mothers. Starkly exposing our culture’s bereft notion of fatherhood as mere sexual congress. Such simple words, “father” and “fatherhood,” have meanings which once were plain, unadulterated. But that was before the intensification of the “struggle between the family and the State for the minds of the young.” And the realization that the final battle […]
December 27, 2020
Happy holidays or the silence of Christmas? They are synonymous, aren’t they? Don’t both phrases [Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas] mean the same thing? I used to think so. But now, I am not so sure. I never understood all of the animosity of some Christians to the first phrase because “happy holidays” is merely a shorthand way to say, “happy holy days..”even if intended to be ‘woke’, the underlying meaning remains. But this Christmas is different, as is so much else in our lives, in America, and this world. Like you, I often hear and read variations on “when […]
December 20, 2020
Hope holders: Reflections on Mary Do you wonder why these beliefs have taken root in your Soul? Roots which deepen, burrow into the secret places of mind and Heart? Year after year, prayer by prayer, tear by tear, doubt by doubt until Fixed? Do you wonder why you believe the impossible-god as infant born of a Virgin? Do you wonder at this girl child, at her trust in the incomprehensible Answer? Enveloped by wisdom, she carried eternity in her womb, A child emptied of ego, of self, of sin, full, instead, of grace. She who was filled with the hope […]
December 13, 2020
We gotta give this world back to God You gotta get down on your knees Believe, fold your hands, and beg and plead Keep on! praying You gotta cry, rain, tears of pain Pound the floor, and scream His name ‘Cause we’re still worth saving Can’t go on like this, and live like this We can’t love like this You can hope the best Make a wish The only answer is We give this world back to God Ohh, give it back … Reba Mcentire Back to God My friend Gordon Ashe posted this song on his Facebook newsfeed early […]
December 6, 2020
These weeks before Christmas In my new home of California, the churches are closed again. Therefore, we are not able to see the simple beauty of the Advent wreath, purple vestments and candles on the altar. But no mind, I found the box containing my Advent wreath and candles and they are now displayed- for these weeks before Christmas have become cherished ones. During my pre-conversion life, these weeks before Christmas were jam packed with parties, mostly work-related and therefore obligatory, along with shopping excursions to unearth novel gifts for people who did not need them. And planning vacation when […]
November 29, 2020
Writing Two Books at Once? If you scroll down to the middle of my home page for my new website, linwilder.com, you will quickly see that I am writing two books at once- a first for me. Each book is scheduled to be released next year. Certainly, I did not plan it this way. However, the antagonist-and even major parts of the plot for Plausible Liars have proved to be so elusive that it makes a strange kind of sense to take a break from all things transgender to return to a place that feels like home: The ancient world. […]
November 23, 2020
The problem with the Catholic Church is the crucifix. That was the first sentence of an article published shortly after my conversion to Catholicism. That there could be meaning in suffering was a concept which both beckoned and baffled me. My career in academic medicine and doctoral studies had been aimed at preventing or at least mitigating suffering. Consequently the Catholic spotlight on the Cross, and St. Paul’s exhortations throughout Corinthians … …But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles fascinated and repelled, yet felt eerily logical. A lifelong writer, finding the search for […]
November 23, 2020
Extrovert, introvert or Ambivert? Extrovert, introvert or Ambivert: Which one fits? “Hey Margaret, I’ve discovered I’m not an extrovert but an introvert!” After listening to my score on author Susan Cain’s twenty- question introvert versus extrovert questionnaire, along with my observation of my husband’s classically extroverted behavior contrasted with my own, my friend from undergraduate days response was a hearty laugh followed by, “Lin, we’re both introverts! It’s just taken us years to figure it out!” If you have spent more a week in the corporate world, then the Meyers Brigg Inventory is undoubtedly familiar to you; perhaps you too […]
November 23, 2020
Quo Vadis America: Revolution of Jefferson or St-Just? The satanic character of the French Revolution does not lie in the deposing or even in the execution of a king but in the raising up of that ancient god, the State, in place not of the king but of God Himself. “The general will” is what the regicide Saint-Just called it, identifying it with morality and virtue that come to be by the inexorable march of historical development. “Our aim is to create an order of things,” he said, “which establishes a universal tendency toward good.” [Italics are mine]. And the […]
November 23, 2020
“Arrogance and scorn have now grown strong; it is a time of disaster and violent anger.” The speaker is Mattathias in the first book of Maccabees. “King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, each abandoning his particular customs. All the Gentiles conformed to the command of the king, and many Israelites were in favor of his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath.” Taken from the Monday Office of Readings of the Divine Office, the words of the ancient king ring eerily familiar 2300 years later. All should be one people meant […]
November 23, 2020
A tribute to wisdom. Even as a a college kid, wisdom was frequently the word I used. Not education, but it was wisdom I was after. Looking back, I see the desire as providential, because I got into the habit of searching—a good thing, I think. That is… if one is clear about her goal. Once back as a believer, one of the very first things I did was to read the Bible. Although much of what I read was opaque-even incomprehensible, two books seemed oddly familiar. Reading the books of Wisdom and the Psalms felt right…fitting…packed full of precisely […]
November 23, 2020
Why look back to the Ancients: Aurelius, Seneca, and the Stoics? Why would we want to return to one of the last Roman Emperors and Greek philosophers who personified rigorous self-denial, extreme fortitude and emotional indifference? Perhaps because we live in an age characterized by self-indulgence, cowardice, and untrammeled emotion? One of the very first books I devoured as a college undergrad was Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. A college professor I admired greatly and have written about in previous posts would liberally quote Aurelius’ pithy observations. I had walked away from God and all things religious but was ferociously searching […]
November 23, 2020
Fatima: A new and magnificent film Most of us know the story, or at least its outline. But for me, it was history, Fatima statues and primarily warnings from the Mother of God. The recently released film produced by Origin Entertainment highlights the oldest of the three visionaries, Lucia, with an astounding and mesmerizing performance by fourteen-year-old Spanish actress Stephanie Gil. Astounding and mesmerizing because of the seeming ease with which Gil portrays the simple faith of a child. A child who becomes a visionary, seeing what no one else sees, hearing what no one else does and suffering the […]
October 4, 2020
He Made Adam First It’s almost fall and I am behind in the writing of Plausible Liars, the fifth in the Dr. Lindsey McCall medical mystery series. Way behind, for I had intended that the first draft be completed by the end of October. Although it is true that we have sold and moved from our beautiful northern Nevada home of eighteen years and my eight-year-old laptop finally bit the dust the week we got here, (the reason there was no article last Sunday) those are not the reasons that my deadline will come and go before the story is […]
September 20, 2020
It’s just a little incense-Saints Cornelius and Cyprian In the Christian liturgy, Wednesday, September 16 was celebrated as the feast of two early martyrs: Saints Cornelius and Cyprian. Men persecuted by the Roman Empire for their Christian faith…fourth century Rome and therefore irrelevant to us seventeen hundred centuries later. But that is because I never bothered to learn anything about these two men. Father Mitch Pacwa celebrated the daily televised mass on EWTN and delivered a riveting homily on these two saints. The polyglot Father Pacwa (he fluently speaks thirteen languages) is a bit of an oxymoron in that he […]
September 13, 2020
Thomas More- A Man For All Seasons Most of us know the movie, and not the play, a misfortune. Because the film, although excellent, is incapable of conveying the complexities, nuances, and timeless relevance of Robert Bolt’s two-act play Thomas More, A Man For All Seasons. Had it not been for my undergraduate English teacher, I’d have missed this stunning, starkly written drama about the most important battle any of us face: conscience versus obedience. In the preface, Bolt writes a piercingly sardonic explanation about why he selected a sixteenth-century Chancellor of King Henry VIII as his archetypal hero. …why […]
September 6, 2020
I live in my head until suddenly something happens to vault me down to my heart. Naturally, I’m a writer. And am therefore constantly conjuring plots and characters. Or working on an article. So this move from our Nevada home for the last eighteen years merely consisted of jumping through the hoops of keeping the house as nearly perfect as possible for all the showings. Then negotiating with realtors and buyers. And accepting the offer, jumping through more hoops of all the inspections-you know, you’ve been there. And then deciding to divest…free yourself from stuff. Books, furniture, clothes, paintings. All […]
August 30, 2020
The things I’ll miss constitute a very long list. So I will share only the top few. The items on my list of the things I’ll miss competed with one another for top priority as the boys (Shadow and Seymour) and I hiked to the top of Pipeline for what may be the last time. Given that the home inspections next week reveal no awful stuff, we will leave our sacred place to buyers who will take over 36 Grant Drive, Wellington, Nevada in just under a month. It was eighteen years ago that we moved here. Eighteen Years!!! Really? […]
August 23, 2020
He fascinates me, this Karol Wojtyla and the sign of contradiction- this man who shocked the world to become the first Polish Pope: This was so long before I had any inkling that I would become a Christian Catholic. With ease I can recall vividly my reaction to an article in Harper’s Magazine. In an article she called, Arguing With the Pope journalist Barbara Harrison wrote about Pope John Paul’s trip to Denver in August of 1993 for what the Pope called the eighth, World Youth Day. I remember little more than my complete sense of bafflement that a man […]
January 26, 2020
Muslim cultures have an intriguing way of greeting one another: How is your heart doing? The English translation to the Persian greeting, “Hello, how are you?” is “How is your heart doing at this very moment? At this very breath?” Head of Islamic Studies Omad Safi suggests that is what we mean when we say “How are you?” We mean to ask, “How is your heart?” I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. […]
January 19, 2020
It’s been two weeks and yet I am still thinking about Sunday evening’s Golden Globes and the New/Old War. Because I wanted to see the winner of the Best Picture, I turned it on in time to watch Ellen DeGeneres speak about receiving the Carol Burnett award. The award was created last year by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association last year to celebrate “outstanding contributions to television on or off the screen…in celebration of the medium’s ” Golden Age.” The comedienne was understandably overjoyed at the kudos: “From her sitcoms, to stand-up, to becoming a household staple on daytime television, […]
January 12, 2020
Stability: It’s an interesting noun- the meaning of which became radically different for me once I became a Benedictine Oblate. Many lifetimes ago, I used it to refer to critically ill patients, but as as an adverb upon naming all the physiologic parameters used to measure the cardiac and pulmonary status of patients, “He’s been stable for the last hour…”. I encountered it anew as a Benedictine Oblate: stability is one of the three promises an Oblate makes upon making her oblation. Stability of Heart – This promise expresses the oblate’s commitment to a particular monastic community. Stability of heart reaffirms […]
January 5, 2020
Stillness Is The Key is the title of an excellent book by Ryan Holiday. This quote is an example of the deceptively simple wisdom contained in it: The world is like muddy water. To see through it, we have to let things settle. We can’t be disturbed by initial appearances, and if we are patient and still, the truth will be revealed to us. Holiday, Ryan. Stillness Is the Key (p. 47). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. I say deceptively simple because the author’s words sound almost banal…if we are patient and still…the too simple words make it sound easily […]