A Very Extra-Ordinary Place

HURRAY! My friend, David Cantero, and I made it.

AVAILABLE NOW!

Just in time for the holiday giving 2012!

A very extra-ordinary old woman with magical powers wants to share her very extra-ordinary gifts with her very ordinary neighbors.

The very ordinary village, full of very ordinary people doing very ordinary things, is soon to become a very extra-ordinary place indeed. But first the wise old woman with magical powers must discover a way to visit her neighbors without them knowing it is she.

Joy and laughter, music and dancing all make life very extra-ordinary

Click on the book cover below to purchase.

 

A Very Extra-Ordinary Place marks our first collaboration.  It is a delightful and beautifully illustrated children’s book.

For more information about the story, sample pages and where to buy look HERE!

8 Replies to “A Very Extra-Ordinary Place”

  1. Congratulations on your new book, A Very Extra-Ordinary Place. I just ordered a copy, which I intend to give as a Christmas gift. I also ordered Secrecy, Sophistry and Gay Sex in the Catholic Church, which I plan to read during time off over the holidays. It sounds like it will be very educating for me. I am a somewhat conservative Catholic, (or at least used to be) so I will surely learn a thing or two. Peace and blessings. Mark

  2. I received the books in the mail today. I read A Very Extra-Ordinary Place yesterday and it was a bright spot in an otherwise sad and gloomy day. I also read some of Secrecy, Sophistry and Gay Sex yesterday and today. I found much of it intriguing. I was surprised by some of the information about gay priests. I found some of it sad. It would be interesting to also talk to a sample of gay priests who were celibate as the ones in your survey for the most part were not celibate. When I was a younger person I pretty much thought that 95%+ of priests were celibate and physically pure. I know now that this isn’t true and that human sexuality is part of all of us priests included. I wonder how much stress and even emotional pain it puts on priests to have to pretend that they are pure and celibate, when a large percentage of priests are not celibate and physical purity pretty much isn’t in the cards for most healthy male human beings. I haven’t gotten through most of your story yet though.

    1. gosh, Mark, you seem to be making an unfortunate, but all too common, mistake about celibacy. celibacy and sexual abstinence are not the same thing. the church continually conflates the two concepts, but their interpretation is incorrect. celibacy simply means unmarried. and sexual abstinence means refraining from sexual expression. the reason i make this point over and over again is that there are married people who are living a sexually abstinent lifestyle and we all know that there are unmarried people, priests included, who enjoy active sex lives. the old catholic distinctions no longer work in today’s world. and therein lies the problem with their moral theology. it’s bankrupt, because they can’t see beyond their medieval constructs.

  3. Part of my interest in this topic has roots in the fact that several years ago I discovered that the priest that taught me religion for 3 years in high school was a sexual predator. He was involved with a friend of mine. It appears that he abused over a dozen teens. It was hard for me to accept. On a personal level, the first two years that I had this priest I don’t really remember him speaking to me outside of class. He was very friendly with some of the popular students in my class and took them on outings. When I was a senior he developed a dislike for me. I attributed this to the tragic death of his favorite student (whom he had a close relationship with). I felt that he resented me for being alive when the boy that he loved so much was dead. When I found out that after I had graduated that he took a student to Florida on a vacation and sexually assaulted this kid I was upset and discussed this with a priest that was involved with the Encourage Support Group. The priest seemed annoyed with me for telling him this and said to me, “Well the kid was committing mortal sins too.” I was somewhat angry at this response and told the priest that it had been the priest who had been committing the mortal sins and that if he was tempted that he should have locked himself in the bathroom and taken care of things by himself. This made the priest quite angry at me. He said that would have been a mortal sin and told me never to speak to him again. This man’s attitude gave me some insight as to why the Church has been so awful at dealing with sexual abuse by priests. I have actually discussed this at length with a counselor and have gotten some insight from that.

    1. Jesus! this kind of thing makes my flesh crawl. the catholic church is rife with twisted and misshapen notions about human sexuality. the Courage and EnCourage groups are simply opportunities to infect others with their self-lothing. it’s no surprise to me that the priest you talked to was so insensitive. for them, it’s simply an issue of sinfulness. what they don’t know about sexual orientation and development is a lot.

  4. During an earlier conversation with that Encourage priest, he stated to me that being gay was like having cancer, you hated the disease but you loved the person. This pretty much left me speechless. I didn’t know what to say. I found the comment insulting but didn’t know how to put my feelings into words. I have talked to some people at Courage and while they may help some people, I find their close ties to NARTH to be troubling and not appropriate. Also, I feel that they are too silent when it comes to discrimination against and mistreatment against gay people. I think they have a look the other way attitude when it comes to this. They seem to want to be careful not to alienate people that dislike gays. While most Catholics as a group are becoming more accepting of gay people, the institutional Church seems to be falling behind in this regard.

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