Category: body

A Pack a Day

2 December 2022
aging, childhood, adolescencebodydeath, mortality, the deaddiseasefamilyfunerals, cemeterieshealingillnessmemoirreligion, spirituality
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I   In the beginning lush San Diego was the Garden of Eden. At the end, when the tall steel gates closed behind them, Nelda said, “Let the Great Serpent have that dreadful place.” She was a riveter. Her husband Miles was a welder. Consolidated Aircraft had terminated their jobs at the end of World…

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Why the “White Man” Can’t Dance

3 February 2021
bodyethnicity, racism, multiculturalismgesture, posturehealinghumormemoirmoving, mobilitymusicritual, festival
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When I was turning 50, I signed up for an African dance course in Boulder, Colorado. Some of the dances, the teacher said, were “social,” some “sacred” or “ritualistic.” One afternoon during class I shorted out. The feet and hips couldn’t remember their assigned movements. The ass wouldn’t shake, and the drummer’s fine rhythms refused…

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Scouting the Horizon

8 October 2020
body languagefuturelandritual, festivalspace, territory
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I’m always scouting. I have a propensity to watch the horizon. What is it you do when you “scout?” It’s hard to shake grade-B cowboy movies out of my imagination. Scouts rode ahead, over horizons, then back to the wagon train—usually with bad news unless San Francisco was just over the mountain. White Cavalry Scout…

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Intimacy and Exposure

27 July 2020
bodydeath, mortality, the deaddiseasefunerals, cemeterieshealinghumorillnessritual, festival
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Friendship in the Covid Era Amigos por siempre The year is 1970. I’ve just finished a PhD. This is my first academic position. Hugo and I are teaching at the same university. He is teaching Spanish. I am teaching religious studies. One morning I hear an articulate stream of Spanish swearing echoing down the hall….

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Troubling the Waters

26 April 2020
bodyhealinghumormusicperformance, play, entertainment

Preface The United Nations declared 1981 as the International Year of Disabled Persons. “Troubling the Waters” is a play I wrote to mark the occasion and enable students to study ritual and performance by exploring a story in the Gospel of John. Since the characters are caricatures of students in the course, I have removed…

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Reading Gestures

14 September 2019
body languagegesture, postureideologypoliticsposture

From left, Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. raise their hands to answer a question Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019, during a Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by ABC at Texas Southern University in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) If you read gestures, as ritual…

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Liturgical Supinity, Liturgical Erectitude

21 May 2019
bodygender, sexualityritual, festival
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On the Embodiment of Liturgical Authority This article was published quite some time ago, in 1993. Buried in an important but obscure journal, Studia Liturgica,  it was rarely read. After the recent papal council on clergy sexual abuse, debates about gender, celibacy, and the priesthood are emerging in the media. It seemed the right time…

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