You can poke fun at a lot of things in religion and all but the most severe practitioners will enjoy the laugh. But church leaders often advise, whatever you...
Testaments
Some things don’t really matter. Others are essential to growth and happiness. The key to life may be in how well we’re able to discern which elements belong...
What I miss most about going to church is the choir. During this long year of pandemic, when I only entered our parish building twice, that’s the piece of...
Thomas Jefferson promoted a rather surprising idea: the need for a healthy society to make generous room for ongoing dissatisfaction. A nation’s Founding...
As a story loses its history, it gains its meaning. This is never truer than in stories shared among families about their common memories. Over the years, the...
It’s Lent again. The anniversary of pandemic. It was this time last year that Petey came into my life unbidden. She left the same way. Coming and going, this...
The heart is the boss of us. This is certainly true when we fall in love. It’s equally obvious when we’re consumed by rage or sorrow. Joy puts a dance in every...
In late 2002 one of my publishers called me on the phone in a panic: “The pope is killing me!” he moaned. Publishers rarely phone. This was serious. The...
This whole blighted year I’ve waited for Isaiah with the agonized impatience children suffer for the arrival of Santa. Not that Isaiah is as rare a...
Last fall in the month of All Saints, I rode the Amtrak from Providence, Rhode Island to Baltimore, Maryland. I was heading to a celebration of the life of...
