Tom's Northwest Passages

Christmas 2017 It’s only December 1. I never write the annual Christmas letter this early! OK, here goes - just treat it as you usually do - the Delete file - well, at least it won’t add to your recycle bin.   We moved mid-year. Our new address, in case you need to track us down so we can right some wrong we may have committed against you, or to report us to the NSA (oh, wait, they already know) is: 1371 SW WINDSOR ST., OAK HARBOR, WA 98277.   We love our new home, 1600 sq ft., less than half the size of our dear old, still unsold house in Coupeville. All one floor, no outdoor maintenance, no stairs, much more convenient for yelling questions at each other (no pretending you didn’t hear that request that always begins with “Sweetheart, would you . . . .?), and in a senior living community of small houses labeled “55 and better”) called Whidbey Green.   I’ll have to get out my calendar for 2017 to remember what happened this year. I envy you if YOU can rem...

Recently, a woman friend and former colleague asked me what insight I might have into the current sexual harassment issue in America. I have no special insight into what is happening in our crazy, sad world. Only God knows. There has always been a dark side to our culture, and every culture I know about, with regard to sexuality. I didn’t handle mine very well either. We make way too much of it, in both expression and repression, in flaunting and in denial, in shamelessness and shame. The example of our current president is of no help here. Women have suffered more, but men too have been and are oppressed by cultural expectations and historic patterns that are not caring or kind. Sometimes, less often, women’s desires and actions have been and are disordered, and this has also contributed to men’s “permission" to be disordered too. Both genders and all sexual orientations are responsible to be caring, faithful, and non-exploitive. This requires a degree of diligent self-awaren...