Chris Broussard

"In this way, in increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss." -- John Irving

In the universe, there are things known, and things that are unknown, and in between there are doors. - William Blake

"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry From SojoMail

So, my posts have petered out to almost nothing lately. If you've noticed, God bless you. The fact is, I've been so self-absorbed for the past few months that I haven't had the energy to share my neuroses with you, or anybody else for that matter. I hope to change that in the days ahead, but don't hold your breath. My sister died recently, moving death closer to me. My father died when I was young, so young that I have no memory of him. I remember my mother getting a phone call in the middle of the night and then getting my brother and me out of bed to tell us. My brother (seven years older) sobbed while I sat still as a stone, confused as to how I should feel. My mother and father had divorced a few years earlier and he'd remarried, so I really had no knowledge of him. It was out of this subsequent marriage that my sister, Stormy, was born. My grandmother died about six years ago, but I really had no feelings for her. She'd been a bitch to me all my life and I

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately. As a rule, I'm a pretty lousy friend. Abusive betrayal as a child, and continued betrayal as an adult, has left me scarred and generally untrusting of others and, thus, unwilling to risk any additional trauma. Let me give you an example. A few years back, when my depression was heavier than it had ever been and I felt that I couldn't continue feeling the way I did, I became suicidal. All my thoughts were focused on ways to do the deed while minimizing the trauma to my family. During this period, a "friend" of mine from church (he was one of the pastors) found out about my situation and called me to see how I was doing. I was already at rock bottom, so I figured, "What the hell?" and opened up to him, explaining in as much detail as I could how and why I was feeling the way I was. He, being a card-carrying Christian and all, said he'd pray for me. But then came the kicker. He added that he was going t

Normally I don't post long essays unless I wrote them, but this is so powerful, I had to post it in its entirety. It's from Bruderhof and their Daily Dig . Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and gave them his blessing. Days later he counseled an airman who had flown a low-level reconnaissance flight over the city of Nagasaki shortly after the detonation of “Fat Man.” The man described how thousands of scorched, twisted bodies writhed on the ground in the final throes of death, while those still on their feet wandered aimlessly in shock—flesh seared, melted, and falling off. The crewman’s description raised a stifled cry from the depths of Zabelka’s soul: “My God, what have we done?” Over the next twenty years, he gradually came to believe that he had been terribly wrong, that he had denied the very foundations of his faith by lending moral a