Mary, A Story about Freedom
We worked side-by-side for two hours, me snatching glances to see how a septuagenarian was keeping up with me and her admitting I was “quite a worker!”
Elaine Schnabel (’11) spent her twenties traveling, blogging, and earning various master’s degrees. Now earning her PhD at the University of North Carolina in organizational communication, Elaine researches and writes at the intersection of religion and communication. You can find her blogging at Religious (Not Crazy).
God’s Orgasm
Why do we expect God to be sexually pure? As a woman, it’s fun to realize God and I have that in common.
Religious Not Crazy
The musty smell of those stairwells matters to me in a way that the bare truth of Evangelical forms of craziness never could.
Living Bookishly: An Intertextual Exploration
When I enter a library or a bookstore, I get a sense of the divine mystery, the excitement of majesty and wonder.
Pothole Culture Shock
I didn’t swerve around the pothole because I didn’t see it. In many ways, I’ve forgotten how to look outside myself and outside my culture.
Look Up
For a moment, I got lost in space and time. Sunday morning church was above me, and I had to look for the bookshelves and study carrels to remember that a library was around me.
A Love Letter to Brandon Sanderson
You bring people together and you bring nerds out of the woodwork. You encourage writers and you inspire dreamers.
Stand for Something
One of the best critiques of our generation is that we are so busy deconstructing things, we stand for nothing.
Young and Brave
My body went hot, my hands shook with James’, and I felt again for the first time in over a decade what it really feels like to fear your peers.
Practical Advice for the Cursed
1. Be the curse. There is an admirable and horrifying impulse in the human heart to pretend that life is okay when it is not.
When A Church Breaks
When a church breaks, her people realize they broke her themselves. By not acknowledging the extent of our own broken fingers and bent hearts, we pursued something that might not have been the gospel.
How to Hot Yoga
Lucky for me, The Hot Room was offering a free event at a local park last week.
Wonder Woman: A Review
I’ve never gone to a movie theater with the bar of expectations so low as I did for Wonder Woman.
In Defense of Ideals
When I got home one day and saw him pathetically trying to work, I summoned up the vision of the ideal wife and did what she would do.
The Floppiness of Students
My students rarely say “no,” however. They say “It’s difficult” or “I’m tired,” because from their perspective they are trying.
Bad Apples
Unfortunately, while one “bad” student—disruptive, selfish, rude—could derail an entire semester for an entire class, the opposite is not true.
Bussing It in Cambodia
Driving in Cambodia is not a careful endeavor. It is not orderly. The rules are, at best, flexible.
When the Movie You Love Doesn’t Love You Back
We started talking about all the shit she got done in Rogue One.
Unfortunately, it turns out Jyn gets zero shit done in Rogue One.
Here in the Parentheses
I can’t be the only woman who read his post and thought, “You’re kidding, right?” I can’t be the only woman who read his post searching for the punchline.
For What Was Done and Not Done Well
Tell me: am I using the wrong words? Wearing the wrong clothes? When I say “black lives matter,” why does it translate into “yours doesn’t”?
Miles to Go
Maybe by the time I’m ninety-six or ninety-seven I’ll see things differently. Maybe I’ll see divine love in the allowance of racial violence, torture, and marginalization.
The Pink Shirt Problem
I reach for something on the floor, feel a breeze on my chest, and we both realize why the shirt has been so long closeted. “Oh,” I say. “Damn.”
Titty Sprinkles
Some of the men on my team couldn’t find a passing lane—offensively or defensively—if their lives depended on it, but no one notices that.
How to Age with Style
Last night I met a twenty-something who is in her last year of undergraduate work. She seemed so young, so bright-eyed and comfortable. I swear I heard my knees creak.
I Am Donald Trump
Entitled. Selfish. Hostile. Angry. Fearful.
I Quit
This was a tantrum that got out of hand, causing me to forget that my desires are not the most important thing in the world.
How to Love Living in the Now When You’d Rather Stay in Bed for All of Time
Some people live in the past, but I prefer the future. When I slip into bed every night, I am waiting for the next good thing.
Adulting
There is power in naming our fears, so here it is: I fear that sort of adulthood. The knowing sort. I fear it because it is a foolish and finite sort of adulthood.
Day 237: The Kitten Chronicles
But the bottle cap has disappeared into the space beneath the big, cold, white box. She has long since learned that is a dark place from which bottle caps do not return. She does not mourn its loss.
New Kid on the Cubicle Block
I’ve missed Saturdays. It’s been years since I had a proper one. In fact, it’s possible that I never have.
