Like many, I was impatient and restless as a young person. My favorite prayer was something along the lines of, “That was fun. What’s next?” What I learned as I grew older was the importance of savoring the gift of the present and the little. …
Tag: purpose
As the Catholic Church faces its future and works to rebuild the faith and trust of its faithful, we all need to ask ourselves a question: Are we standing in the right place? …
Pope Francis recently acknowledged the “shame and repentance" of the Catholic Church's failure to act on decades of sexual abuse by clerics against our young people. He stated emphatically that the Church “showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them." Like many Catholics, I appreciate his words, but they are not enough. …
Pondering, at least it seems for me, is a most appropriate approach and primer to a life of prayer. When we can arise each morning and listen for the sound of our favorite bird and then connect it to the movement of God in our lives, we are certainly on to something mystical and yet very real. …
There’s always an “unknown blessing” on its way. We’re all walking headlong into a blessing every day that we can’t see coming, and it might have taken a long and winding road to get to us. We just need to live with our eyes wide open and watch for it. We need to show up and do stuff. We need to take chances. We need to not miss the blessing when it appears. …
The power of Easter Saturday is that it teaches us to wait and watch, to sit quietly and contemplate what it all means and how it will change our lives. This post includes a brand-new song that encourages us to do just that, I hope, written just a few weeks ago with my friends John Caravelli and Phil Cooper. John brought the song to us nearly complete and together we all made it into something new. That’s what happens when …
“Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.” Wendell Berry I am deciding to “be joyful” today, even though the facts — the words and the images swirling around me — can be a bit disheartening. I am deciding that only I get to choose what creates my state of mind and my attitude toward the world. …
Last night I had the good fortune to attend a lecture at Washington University (where I work) by Father Michael Perry, the American Franciscan friar who is the minister general of the Order of Friars Minor. Sponsored by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics, Fr. Perry spoke on this theme: "What Do Francis of Assisi and Francis of Buenos Aires Have in Common? A 'Franciscan' Perspective on the Common Good." My write-up here is by no means …
One step at a time, one day at a time, one breath and one prayer at a time. We keep walking and moving, even when the view in front of us is steep and rugged, when the view behind us reminds us of where we have been. We keep walking, even when we are reminded how much easier this was when we were younger and healthier. We keep moving because it’s much better than standing still and doing nothing. We …
When the heroine of E.B. White’s classic children’s novel “Charlotte’s Web” first writes “SOME PIG” in her web in an attempt to save her friend Wilbur’s life, she was creating more than a PR campaign. She was creating wonder. She was making everyone who saw her web stop in their tracks, stand back, scratch their heads, and try to contemplate something they couldn’t fathom. That, in fact, is a pretty good way to go through life. …