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Personal Reflection

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November 2017

November 20, 2017

St. Anna of the Walking Dead

Plures efficimur, quoties metimur a vobis (We multiply whenever we are mown down by you)...

November 16, 2017

A Feminine Corollary To Machismo? Part 2

My companions and I had overstayed our moment in the bishop’s suite, which was by...

November 15, 2017

A Feminine Corollary to Machismo? Part 1

After the keynote speaker at the conference, everyone in my immediate vicinity wanted a drink,...

November 14, 2017

Remembering Father George

My priest has died. Or rather, in Eastern Orthodox terminology, he has reposed. He has...

November 13, 2017

Letter from an Underground Karamazov to His Couple’s Therapist

Dear Dr. E, My, but you’re a clever one, aren’t you? You sit there looking...

November 09, 2017

Everything I Know

Everything I know fits inside my body, but where does my body end? Is it...

November 08, 2017

You Can’t Hide from Winter

Winter is coming. All of northern Michigan seems to whisper the warning. The sun is...

October 2017

October 30, 2017

These Bones

My son Sam, like many six-year-olds, is a devout observer of Halloween. He loves the...

October 26, 2017

The Erasmus Option, Part 2

For Erasmus, Thomas More, and the other humanists of that era, literature and figurative language...

October 25, 2017

The Erasmus Option, Part 1

Picture The Old Humanist standing at his desk. The year is 1533. Desiderius Erasmus is...

October 24, 2017

Fit For Transformation

When my sister first told me about Orangetheory Fitness, I was intrigued. “You’d probably dig...

October 23, 2017

The Best in Bedtime Reading

A therapist I once went to for help with insomnia advised me: “Stop reading a...

October 19, 2017

How to Negate Hate

Recently I gave a talk to the freshman at a local college on the theme...

October 18, 2017

Looking For Release

This post originally appeared at Good Letters on May 9, 2012. Dayne, my mother’s ex-boyfriend,...

October 17, 2017

Silent Mysteries

Lately, it seems, everyone is talking about silence—how they have less of it, how they...

October 09, 2017

To Be Born Again

The day after Yom Kippur 5778 When I finish being born for the fourth...

October 05, 2017

The Vocation Trap

My wife is finishing up the first of a multi-year graduate program in nursing. When...

October 04, 2017

Homecomings

Last night I sat on the curb with my three youngest children, while my three...

October 02, 2017

Bridal Veils and Blessing

In the back of the closet right, where I’d stowed it years before, I found...

September 2017

September 27, 2017

My Kite Boy

This post originally appeared at Good Letters on June 5, 2012. I woke at one...

September 25, 2017

Questions for the One Who Waits

Psalm 27 is read by Jews from the beginning of the Jewish month of Elul...

September 19, 2017

The Spirit’s Indwelling

Beside me this morning is a child at the breakfast table vigorously chewing a Fuji...

September 14, 2017

Why I’m Writing a Death Penalty Book for Teens

1. I was standing in the kitchen of a rental house in the middle of...

September 13, 2017

There is Only This Present Moment

I’m trying to trust in God. My husband has had chronic fatigue and chest pain...

September 11, 2017

Remembering 9/11 in Washington D.C.

Sixteen years later, 9/11 seems so distant that it is merely a touchstone for rhetoric....

September 07, 2017

Still on the Line

I will not claim credit for many things, but one virtue I own is that...

August 2017

August 31, 2017

Holmes, Help My Unbelief

There on my bookcase was a row of nine matching hardbacks. On their spines, a...

August 30, 2017

My Tears Had Names

Guest Post The phone rang. My newborn must have been asleep—I have no recollection of...

August 23, 2017

The Sweetness These Days

On the phone, he says, Your mother throws me over her shoulder and carries...

August 21, 2017

Prowling the Woods

My father told me that when he used to bird hunt through the Kilgore Hills...