Last month, as Chicago and other Midwest cities made headlines for smoky skies, I donned my mask and headed outside. A certain sadness, much like the haze, enveloped me. I wondered whether the tears in my eyes were from the smoke or for the smoke, and what it meant. By the end of June, Canada…
Last week, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released an Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. This advisory comes in response to a national “loneliness epidemic,” which is profoundly impacting both our collective emotional and physical health. Dr. Murthy speaks not only as a medical professional but as one who has…
I spent my entire last year of college waiting to get into the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, your typical, post-graduate year of service program. I thought that I would love it. I didn’t. The top floor bedroom, that was mine, was sweltering. The city was noisy, dirty, disorienting. My foot broke. And the children at my…
My Dear Friend, When I woke up on Christmas morning, I thought of John 1:5. It was a rare gift for me to have only one thought, not plagued by a system of worries and threats and to lie awake — even for a short time — with just this one thought. “The light shines…
