I was standing in the middle of a small frozen lake near our house, chatting with my husband and Nate, another father in our neighborhood. I was in ice skates...
Catholic Voices
I am in my garden, squatting in the dirt like a medieval peasant, as around me rise the complex smells of lichen and mineral, exhalations of earthworm and...
When I was little, I was very shy. Once I went with my cousin Kathy to her friend Linda’s house. We knocked and walked into the kitchen, where Linda’s mother...
In a distinguished career as special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights for the United Nations, Australian Philip Alston has visited some of the...
School lunchrooms all smell and look the same, the overripe aroma of hundreds of lunches barely contained by cream-colored walls just this side of salmon...
“When are you guys gonna buy a place?” asked a couple sitting at a marriage prep retreat table with my fiancé and me. This was right after the priest leading...
It’s hard to argue that the arrival of Europeans in the Americas was anything other than a disaster for indigenous people. The numbers are disputed, but the...
In high school my tight-knit group of friends and I would converge on weekends at our friend Nicole’s house. We would load up on snacks, candy, and pop and...
There is a rhythm to pipe smoking, a ritual even, one that allows you, if you let it, to enter into a state of contemplation. You must pack the pipe first, and...
Driving on a paved road not far from home last summer, I saw an injured snake, hit by a car, stuck by its open wound to the road. It was curling and writhing...
