Nobody's An Authority In Someone Else's Experience.

I have a number of people to thank for the above image. Lil Copan primarily. Then Broadleaf Books. Then everyone who keeps supporting me by buying & talking up my stuff. I’d also like to thank those who talk down my stuff. Sometimes a critic is Buddha enough.

My son, Sam, insists failure is a learning opportunity. It’s true. And a beloved book being taken out of print can occasion new life. This one isn’t just revised & reframed. It’s even repentant. I’m not kidding. I slow my roll, freeze the frame, and even apologize in this one. Please read, order, share, publicize and, if the spirit leads, attack it. Difference is the sunshine.

And thank you, Christina Edmondson, for joining the merry band of endorsers. We are a beginning.

I feel this way about all my books, but…I honestly think this one could move the needle or at least the check the momentum of fascism here and there. If you didn’t know this, here’s a tip for doing authors a solid: Order their books via your public library. Bandwidth permitting, please order mine. Also, if you live near or know of an independent bookstore, order it from them. Just so you know: I’m extremely up for travelling to bookstores to read from and sign copies. I also speak in front of people for a living. You could even say I talk good with words. Here’s a picture of me doing just that while wearing what David Zimmerman once referred to as “a statement jacket.”

Want me to show up somewhere and attempt my song and dance in front of you and some friends? Reach out. I bet we could make it happen.

Getting another crack at the text gave me an opportunity to refine, kindasorta change, and also broaden my argument. I’ve enjoyed telling people that the book could’ve just as easily been titled Life’s Too Short To Pretend You’re Religious or even Life’s Too Short To Pretend You’re Not Political. Now they can see for themselves. Give this a look.

Here’s more of that.

And then there’s the Afterword. I bring Midnight Mass and Justice Amy Coney Barrett into the proceedings. I’m awfully disappointed in hundreds of people I know personally who I never imagined would cling to bigotry, or worse, coddle bigots this far into the 21st century. In the Afterword, I give voice to this disappointment while also trying to make the most of what I’ve learned. It also affords me the opportunity to clarify my position so as to render my work less useful in the strategies of abusive people.

“Nobody’s an authority in someone else’s experience” is a saying that’s arisen out of a number of difficult exchanges (I refuse to call them punch-ups) that have occurred in-person as well as on Twitter. I think of Twitter as a handy tool for advocacy, amplification, and a strange sort of acceleration. Like a magic ring, it draws an energy out of people, amplifying our capacity for the demonic as well as the prophetic insofar as it serves the ends of public dramatization, escalating and heating things (or our perception of things) up.

I don’t know what’s about to become of Twitter given the fact that it’s now owned & overseen by a testy billionaire and his partners in the House of Saud, but I’m pleased with the language interactions with others, by way of the tool, has brought out of me. In a deep sense, I owe the line (Nobody’s an authority in someone else’s experience) and my new-found insistence on the terms “spiritual abuse” and “Christian supremacy” to what I’ve read and beheld and experienced and tried to set down there.

So….this is a signal flare. The revised, repentant, reframed, and expanded version of the book is out in the wild. Please review it OR put me in touch with potential reviewers. I’m all ears. Thanks for listening.