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“All the Lonely People”: On Hospitality, Again
The anonymous blogger, Frau Luther, is frustrated with the way we (or perhaps just I, since I seem to be the one who throws the word around the most here) at SF talk about hospitality: Like, there’s a...
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The Lonely Hausfrau
I know that Wes closed the comments on his last post because Frau Luther had taken offence—and justly so. I wanted to weigh in, though, because I’m the writer for Spiritual Friendship who has the...
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“The Problem of Gay Friendship”
I’ve got an essay in the new issue of The Other Journal, which is now available online. It’s called “The Problem of Gay Friendship,” and it will give you some idea of how the book I’m writing is taking...
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The Vulnerability of Hope
“I’m lonely”, I said a few weeks ago in a phone conversation with a friend. I wore my favorite grey hoodie with the hood pulled over my head as I leaned against a bookshelf in my empty apartment. A few...
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Everyday Intimacy Played Out
I wrote a post earlier this week that highlighted some of my fears for the future related to loneliness. As some of my closest friends have moved away, I’ve caught myself coming home to an empty...
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“S1NGLE – God’s Gifts : Our Plan”
Here’s something that may interest some of you. On Saturday I spoke at a conference on singleness at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, and the videos are all online if you want to watch them....
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Crucifixion and the Experience of Sexual Minorities
Catholic teaching often speaks of the experience of being gay as a “cross” or “trial”: The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination …...
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The Freedom to Love
When many of my friends moved toward a theology that affirms gay sexual relationships, they did so because they grew weary of saying “no” to love. Several of them described an experience where they...
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“Just Get Married” and Other Uncaring Advice
When some of my gay friends talk about the struggles of living celibate lives, they are occasionally told by their more progressive friends that they should “just go get married.” I suspect that the...
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Here Is Your Answer, But You Can’t Have It
Recently, one of my friends on Facebook pointed me to an article on the Gospel Coalition blog about a man who experiences an intensely deep friendship with another guy. It really is beautiful. The...
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“His Grief Became a Light to Us”
A reader of my book Washed and Waiting, in which I talk at some length about Henri Nouwen’s life as a celibate gay priest, just wrote me an email about how that part of Nouwen’s life intersected with...
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Lives That Go Unwitnessed
It hurts the most after spurts of laughter. For instance: I was recently working out in my apartment and heard the Free Willy theme song. Naturally, I started singing because somehow I knew the entire...
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How to Narrate Complexity
I finally watched Desire of the Everlasting Hills, a recent hour-long film that’s gotten a lot of attention in our circles of late. It tells the stories of three Catholics who, at least at one time,...
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You Can’t Be a Virgin Alone
I was talking a bit this week with Todd Billings, who is a professor of Reformed theology at Western Seminary in Holland Michigan, and he passed along an essay he wrote when he was single and in his...
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At the Intersection of Ethics and Ecclesiology
Over at the Gospel Coalition, Corey Widmer has a post that reads like it could have appeared here at Spiritual Friendship. There are at least two points he makes that are especially relevant to our...
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Gay Is Not The Scandal, Celibacy Is
I’m sure the last thing that most of us want to read is yet another pontification on the term “gay”. Hear me out. In his book, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, the great Reformed theologian John...
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To Celibacy—Part 1
Editor’s Note: When the founders and regular writers at Spiritual Friendship originally got together, we united around the following statement: “God created us male and female, and His plan for sexual...
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Some Clarifications Regarding Sexual Orientation and Spiritual Friendship
In contemporary Western culture, it’s common to describe oneself as gay, straight, or bi, depending on whether one’s sexual attractions are primarily directed to the same sex, the opposite sex, or both...
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Faith, Hope, Love…and Loneliness
In high school, I would cry quietly in my bed. I felt like an outsider in my faith community. I felt a measure of rejection from my family. I felt confusion, shame, and insecurity about my sexuality....
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Frederica Mathewes-Green: A Sacrifice for a Friend
Frederica Mathewes-Green is an award-winning Antiochian Orthodox author and lecturer, married to an Orthodox priest [full bio here]. The following was published on her website on March 13; we repost...
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