Take a deep breath. What follows is not light. But neither are death and Resurrection. April is National Poetry Month in the United States. This year, it includes the final weeks of the Christian season of Lent, with Easter celebrated on April 20. Holy Week, the days immediately preceding Easter, overlaps Passover. April 24 is Holocaust...
In 1980, Poland's Solidarity movement became the first labor union in Soviet bloc countries. The "Solidarność" banner became iconic. In November 2024 United States citizens elected a president who relishes chaos and vengeance. My anguish over the suffering this administration’s wrecking crew inflicts leads me...
A source of joy is my discovery of Fix the News. Mainstream media still run...
The photo above shows Advent wreath candles, and we light the pink candle...
When I think of gratitude, pilgrims are not my first thought. Nor even my grandmother’s deliciously unhealthy Thanksgiving dumplings. Instead, I remember the voice of our old friend Bro. David Steindl-Rast, with its melodic Austrian accent. He insists that true gratitude can become a constant state of mind. It isn’t that I’m grateful for this...
I am a big fan of Mark Longhurst’s “The Holy Ordinary” posts on Substack. He shares his spiritual pilgrimage with intelligence and humility. Anyone aiming to live contemplatively can benefit from his work. I was moved recently by his discovery of Sabeel, an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement...
In our August 2024 Fire and Light podcast, we offer a guided meditation on a “soulscape” that changed your life. If you prefer reading to listening to a meditation, we post the reflection here. Take your time as you read; feel free to stop at any point and let your memory and imagination ponder,...
In the torpor of Tucson’s summer heat, it can be hard to think. I walk or bike along the Santa Cruz River at dawn, or even shoot hoops in the park. Then I hole up and focus on survival as temperatures soar. But here are three book reflections and some thoughts that simmer in my heat-muddled...
Just before dawn, stand in the cool desert. Eastward, a dark butte protects you from the light that soon will strike. The oblong moon hovers, waning, in pale silver sky. Walk, and your foot crunches the gravelly earth, loud in the silence. But then it isn’t silent, is it? Before and behind you birds make music. Skinny lizard skitters ahead of you. Farther on, a soft young cottontail disappears into the rattlebush. Wend between the sticky green leaves and furry-globe pods of creosote. Meander...
Should I be surprised at how unnerving it is to write a memoir? My mother died of Alzheimer's disease, so someday I may forget who I have been. I better finish the story before it’s too late. I recently reread a poem I wrote years ago, a kind of memoir in fewer than two hundred words. It includes references...