The praying mantis
In the picture her mom sent, my five-year-old granddaughter is staring wide-eyed at the praying mantis she has just discovered on the back of her chair at breakfast. Alice loves bugs. She has a box ...
Will millions die due to USAID cuts?
How does the world view the U.S. right now? How do we deserve to be viewed? Are we working to create "the beloved community" which Dr. Martin Luther King envisioned, which is another way of saying "the ...
How thoughts affect us
It's been many years since I drove my kids daily to their Catholic school in Anchorage, Alaska. Every mom -- and everyone who was ever a kid -- remembers the occasional chaos of school mornings, grabbing ...
The shepherd dies with his sheep
In the midst of the bloody Syrian civil war, a Dutch Jesuit named Father Frans van der Lugt was killed in the ravaged city of Homs. It was April 7, 2014. He was beaten and then shot in the head. The ...
In the garden
It was a little past 5 in the morning when I was jarred awake by a wet tongue licking my nose. We were dog-sitting our daughter's pit bull, and this was my morning wake-up call. Being quiet for my ...
A Birmingham jail
In April 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sat in jail in Birmingham, Alabama. Famously committed to non-violence, Rev. King was arrested after leading a peaceful march of Black protesters who ...
The God of second chances
The day after Christmas dawned gray and bleak. The forecast was snow, sleet, ice. Opened presents begged to be sorted and put away. There were clothes to try on, returns to make. Leftovers filled the ...
The Advent the church collapsed
In the Advent season, memories rise to the surface like so many twinkling lights on the tree. We remember those we love who have passed, the happy Christmases, the sad ones. We remember the house where ...
