Brother Juniper and the Pig’s Foot

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I wrote a piece about the tradition and vocation of “holy fool” for a recent issue of Geez Magazine. I’ve written an accompanying piece here, focusing on my favorite holy fool in Western Christianity. To me, the classic example of holy fool within the Western Christian tradition is Brother Juniper. Born in the late 12th century, Brother Juniper was an early follower of Saint Francis of Assisi. Francis was himself a holy fool, having famously renounced his inheritance by stripping naked, kissing lepers, preaching to forest creatures, and living a life of such stark simplicity and deep generosity that it sparked … Read more

Queering Jesus

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“Queer” started as a slur against folks whose sexuality or gender “deviated” from the norm. In the late 1980s, various people and groups started embracing the word as a sort of self-identifier. A way of challenging mainstream society and its assumptions about what is “normal.” Today it is often used as a “catch all” for those who don’t identify with the dominant assumption that the “normal” way of being human is to be cisgender (a person whose gender identity conforms to the sex they were assigned at birth) and heterosexual. Many people turn to the Bible to reinforce the idea … Read more