Posts by John Blase

I don’t remember any of my father’s sermons. Lord knows I’ve tried. Yet what I vividly retain is his presence, and maybe that’s the better thing. For there are those who preach and the words ring wrong. But there are some whose words surrender to God’s alchemy so that their very flesh and bones become…

Maybe if I lived there and walked’ past it each day and heard its timely bells it would fall into the realm of the familiar, a thing taken then for granted. Maybe. But I’d like to believe otherwise. Standing in the rafters of the Cathedral of Siena at dusk, I simultaneously felt a vertigo in…

I am just now in the early autumn of my life, the green just now beginning to gray. Exactly seven days ago I sat with one of my oldest friends. We both agreed our give-a-shit is broke. It’s not that we don’t care, for we do, deeply. It’s that our to-care list has been culled.…

The trouble with physical beauty isn’t with physical beauty. The trouble with physical beauty is with us. Past generations could name it but we’ve grown tongue-tied in our attempts to ensure everyone gets a participation trophy. But consider this. Let’s take, for example, a woman like Princess Kate Middleton. Now is she financially savvy, good…

The ad above the urinal in the Toot’n Totum in Dalhart, Tx read JJ’s fruit pies, 2 for $2. To say there was dissonance in that moment would be understatement, so even though yes, a steal of a deal on fruit pies, no, no thanks. Yet as I drove away bladder happy I wondered if…

What would I say to you, Joe? (Can I call you Joe?) Kamala calls you Joe (Can I call her Kamala?). Is this what we are to expect in the first of your first one hundred days—the first first-name basis administration? Joe, I voted for you, but this feels too chummy, which sounds strange seeing…

That all the world should be vaxxed. The decree rides the winds of this our discontented winter and I find myself thinking of her—Mary—the woman love ruptured that holy horrible night. Dare I pray to you? I was taught there’s no need for an intermediary, but then again what about a friend? The older, worldly…

Yesterday the Daily Reminder reminded me that turtles are not inside their shells, they are their shells. The turtle’s shell is not her home, but her skeleton. Her. This truth led me lumbering down the sands of mind reminding me of the line erroneously attributed to Lewis: “You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” Upon first hearing it,…