Technology and social media have this lovely little trick of reminding you exactly what you were doing on this day in past years. These last few days have been interesting to relive. Last year I was walking through the heartbreaking tragedy of divorce. Divorce can be such an isolating thing, causing a tidal wave of …
When I’m worried and I can’t sleepI count my blessings instead of sheepAnd I fall asleep counting my blessings.. (White Christmas, 1954. If you can’t hear that in Bing Crosby’s voice we can’t be friends.) I like my job. Every day I cook meals and snacks for students who are in the pursuit of truth, …
In truth I am not a very strong person. When I was a child I was so sickly and weak that my dad said he remembers placing me in my crib, looking down at me crying, and giving me to God. He told God that He could take me if he wanted because my dad …
I don’t recall really going to any funerals until I was quite grown—maybe my senior year of high school. And even then they were few and far between. However, in the past 10 years I feel like they have been a major source of my social interactions. Got plans this weekend? Oh, yeah, headed to …
I didn’t use to believe in it. But, I did it anyway. Now I believe in it and do it even more. I am speaking of praying for the dead. There is something about it we cannot help. Even people who claim to not believe in Purgation will say things such as, “May they Rest …
I have a penchant for dwelling on the negative. I am not uncomfortable sitting…nay….wallowing in my feelings. I can throw a mean pity party for myself. Don’t judge me. You’re invited. BYOK (bring your own kleenex) We can play all the sad songs and get really deep in it. Do you want to hear the …
“I will repay you double what the swarming locust has eaten…” Joel 2:25 Catholic Rural Life Farm To Table Supper 2020. I made a spectacular menu with lobster spring rolls and a Moroccan lamb and chicken stew and five kinds of paletas. I didn’t eat any of it. I barely made it through the day. I leaned …
Jordan Peterson talks about how you know a friend is a real friend. He says the first mark is that you can tell them bad news and they won’t make you feel stupid or that all your back luck is your own fault. The second mark is that you can tell them good news and …
“Sometimes, at the dinner table, a man might get up and go outside and walk and walk, simply because there’s somewhere in the East a church. And his own children consider him dead. Yet another, who dies in his own house, stays put, living on in his table and glass, so that this time it’s …
A friend asked me recently if I wrote a book what would it be about. I said, “I don’t know. Grief and other lovely things, I suppose.” That is said without an ounce of sarcasm, by the way. I have been in a season of grief for a while—the kind of grief that was at …
reconciling things 