The Quixotic Deacon

A good friend of mine, Mary Berlinghof of Newport, RI, shared an opinion piece from The New York Times with me today. It was written by a Times Contributing Opinion Writer, Margaret Renkl, whose byline caught my eye since she is from Nashville, where my daughter and her family live. Please read it:   https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/23/opinion/lent-spring.html?referringSource=articleShare ...

My mom visited us here in New Orleans recently and something she said made me stop and think. She said nearly everyone she knows expects Donald Trump will win a second term. I retorted that she did indeed know one person who believes Trump won’t be re-elected — ME! — and reminded her that her ...

Last week I began reading Disunion!, a book chronicling events over a 70-year period that set the stage for the Civil War. The book, by University of Virginia history professor Elizabeth Varon, has made me wonder about my own education in the public schools of South Carolina and the private school I attended in Virginia. ...

When it seems I’ve dropped off the face of the earth for a month, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing to write about, it only means that other things kept me from it.  That’s what happened this last month when two events — an initially scary 10-day illness and The Women’s World Cup — sidelined me. ...

As the Quixotic Deacon travels further into the maw of Lent and his annual struggle to observe the season in a holy fashion, some rather non-Lenten thoughts have bubbled up. Herewith:   The Methodists   In late February a worldwide convocation of Methodist leaders, both lay and clergy, voted to reaffirm the church’s ban on ...

Mardi Gras Season For the large majority of you who don’t live in New Orleans, you might not realize that Mardi Gras is a season, not merely the eve of Ash Wednesday. We began in earnest on Friday, Feb.22,  then parade almost ceaselessly for the next 12 days, until Ash Wednesday. Please don’t picture your ...

  One of the things that I love about being an Anglo Catholic is the emphasis we place on following the church year as opposed to the secular year. That’s why I entitled this post as I did. Those of us who pay close attention to the church year know that many parishes celebrate the ...