Weeks before departing for my Holy Week Camino pilgrimage in April, I am out for one of my practice walks. Bundled into layers of winter clothing, I cross through muddy, grayish-tan grass crusted partly by winter’s snow melting into the thawing ground. It is Lent: the season of awakening, of emergence, of spring. I am…
The Holy Spirit is coming! The Holy Spirit!! Easter has ended. Jesus ascended. The power of Pentecost is nearly here. (We’ll celebrate this feast on Sunday.) What sort of wildness is unleashed into the world by way of these turns in the liturgical calendar? How has the energy transformed us and made us more into the…
Since I was a kid, good folks started challenging me to think “outside the box.” In one case, I remember sitting in the shade on a hot day with a group of girls at Bible camp and our counselor offering a puzzle: I am going on picnic and bringing cookies and my glasses. What are you…
Since high school, I’ve been teaching the Christian faith to others. In parishes, classrooms, and while camping in the woods, I’ve taught songs, explained Bible stories, instilled virtues and asked students to memorize definitions and lists. And, occasionally, over the years, a thoughtful youngster in one of those settings would interrupt my enthusiastic lectures and…
An old building in disrepair, collapsing toward the ground. A rusting, defective car, stuck in layers of mud. Shattered glass. Melting candle. Cracked eggshells. Chipped ceramics. The sight of the simplest crack in a sidewalk can still my body, stun my soul. The colors and textures of a simple, broken branch can inspire poetry. It may…
Hypocrisy. According to Google, it’s “The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.” It’s a dirty word; the worst of insults in religious circles. Why, then, do those who consider themselves clean of heart, hand and tongue seem to so relish the taste of…
“While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ~ Matthew 9:10-11 This past fall, in the final ramp up to the election, I saw…
My heart is broken this week. I am aching with everyone who has been hurt in any way by the shooting in Orlando. I am bemoaning the brokenness in our world, the division, violence, judgement, and hate that allow such awful atrocities to occur. I am angry that our nation’s laws fail to protect the common…
Merry Christmas!! I have an invitation for you this week. Let us all enter into the story of Christmas and consider the amazing Truth: our God humbly, beautifully, became one of us. We, as a humanity, have never been the same since. The Incarnation really changed everything. Now, we are people of the New Covenant, this…
Over eight years ago, I had a conversation about table manners that continues to challenge me. At the time I was a canonical novice and fairly new to religious life. During that stage of formation, I was trying to make sense of what it meant to be a Catholic sister and sort through my ideals….
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