I sat down on my parents’ front lawn in Los Angeles and breathed in the fresh air. I dug my hands into the dirt, relishing the feeling. Then I began tearing...
Personal spirituality
There’s a certain diagnosis you will hear over and over if you start to ask Catholics about Jesus—particularly about other Catholics’ relationships with Jesus...
Thirty years ago, the fine theologian John Shea, teaching a course on redemption, introduced me to Flannery O’Connor’s fiction. I found her stories...
Robert Orsi makes a brave choice in his recent book Between Heaven and Earth (Princeton University Press). “There’s a taboo associated with speaking out of...
At my 30th class reunion, one of the lectures offered was by a young psychologist doing cognitive research. He showed us a three-minute video, and our task was...
It’s said that coming out is a lifelong process. There are its initial, more dramatic phases, usually connected with firsts (though not necessarily in this...
Frequent contributor Brian Doyle writes, furious and haunted and mourning, from Oregon, where nine people were murdered and 10 others crippled by a gun-toting...
My wife and I run together at a local state park. “Together” is optimistic; I can no longer keep pace with her. We ran track together in college, but I am a...
“That’s Jesus, Mama!” shouted my cousin’s exuberant daughter, Claire. Her mother was reading to her not from the gospels, but from the climactic scene of The...
“Secure your oxygen mask before helping others.” Many of us don’t even pay attention to these words anymore. We’re old hands at flying, so while the flight...
