I stare at the little green shoots on our small and struggling tree and will them to grow faster. Come on, I think. The deer can still reach you there. You have to get taller, bigger, wider, anything. But, of course, that’s not how trees work. That’s not how plants grow. And that’s not how […]
Ever have a gut-wrenching day? Not just a hard day, but a day when you felt like there was nothing left inside of you but ache? Maybe it was the day your teenager screamed at you for the umpteenth time and slammed the door in your face. Maybe it was the day you had to […]
The first time I ran a meeting as a leader of adults, I made a colossal mistake. It took me years, however, to understand the mistake and its implications for building my team. I remember being so nervous preparing for that first meeting. Though I had confidence in the ministerial abilities that had led me […]
Life has been busy. Maybe it is the season of life. My teen sons cannot yet drive but still have violin lessons and jujitsu classes they need to be driven to. And my husband and I have so much work, it is rare we are both home the same evening. In these moments of busy-ness, […]
A few years ago, I visited the town in Ireland where my father’s ancestors lived. The cathedral there was built in the 1950s, so it’s unlikely that any of my relatives were part of its construction. Yet, when I went in, I felt immediately rooted. It was as if I could somehow feel a bunch […]
As a preface to his declaration about the Incarnation in Philippians, St. Paul said, “The attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had.” Wisdom is making peace with the unchangeable. We have the freedom to face the unavoidable with dignity, to understand the transformational value that attitude works on suffering. Viktor Frankl […]
I am a djembefola (one who plays djembe drums). I learned to play these drums (also known as talking drums) at the age of ten. An older man who lived in my neighborhood in the South Bronx had studied African drumming, and he was kind enough to hand down all that he knew about this […]
Recently I read a column in a Catholic publication that was about an important and controversial topic. Yet it was so full of invective and nasty ad hominem attacks that I had to stop reading it. The readers’ comments online were even worse. The depth of their rage and bitterness overwhelmed me. There was no […]
