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Catholic

2017-01-06T16:40:39-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Meeting Islam in Interfaith Friendships

Last updated on: January 6, 2017 at 4:40 pm By Peggy Rosenthal

In 1993 my husband George Dardess began visiting our local Islamic Center: first to learn Arabic so that he could read the Qur’an, then cementing friendships with his teacher there and with the imam. So when the events of September 11, 2001 hit, George was in a position to join with members of the Center in presenting programs on Islam to the public. Our Islamic Center’s brave response to 9/11 was to open itself to the larger community—to invite Christians... Read more

2017-05-09T12:25:25-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Hea i ka Haku

Last updated on: May 9, 2017 at 12:25 pm By Guest Contributor

By Marlene Muller On day two we fired the harpist. “The music is really very lovely,” the nurse had explained, as if we’d never heard a harp before. My sister and I sat facing each other in plastic chairs on either side of a hospital bed. We watched the nurse smear Vaseline on our mother’s lips. Our mother’s eyes were closed, and she continued the loud, gurgled breathing that began after she lost consciousness from her second stroke one floor... Read more

mothers and daughters

parents

2017-01-05T20:31:02-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Listening to Silence

Last updated on: January 5, 2017 at 8:31 pm By Gregory Wolfe

I arrived at the advanced screening for Martin Scorsese’s new film, Silence, in the worst possible frame of mind. For one thing, I was running late after seeing to some errands. Also, I was starving. My only option for getting some food in time was a fancy burger joint near the entrance to the multiplex. It was one of those places that makes your burger to order and I fidgeted at the table, waiting for my number to be announced.... Read more

2017-01-04T18:07:32-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

There Is No Free Breakfast

Last updated on: January 4, 2017 at 6:07 pm By Elizabeth Duffy

When I joined the gym, I was given two free personal training sessions to help “jump-start” my fitness routine. Almost every gym I’ve joined came with such a pass, but I never used them, because I used to coach cross country track, for goodness’ sake. I thought I knew how to exercise. Six babies later though, I felt like I needed some help. I’d been driving like a gangster in my car, seat back, slumped to one side, one arm... Read more

2017-01-02T19:38:11-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Song of Songs for These American Days

Last updated on: January 2, 2017 at 7:38 pm By Richard Chess

With thanks and apologies to the Beatles, Leonard Cohen, Emily Dickinson, Neil Young, Wallace Stevens, Bruce Springsteen, the Wailin’ Jennys, Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, God, Joni Mitchell, Bob Marley, Paul Simon, Tom Waits, Sam Baker, The Band, Bruce Cockburn, The Grateful Dead, Richie Havens, and all the musicians and poets who have sustained and nourished me to this day. I read the news today. Oh boy. They’re sealing the cracks in the ceiling. Now how’s the light going to get... Read more

2017-01-10T14:29:23-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Transcendence: A Tribute to William Christenberry (1936-2016)

Last updated on: January 10, 2017 at 2:29 pm By A. G. Harmon

“The art of losing isn’t hard to master,” Elizabeth Bishop said, with irony. Still, it’s true that we mislay so many things over a lifetime that we become quite adept at bearing our deprivations. By the end, it’s a wonder that we have so much left to convey; the reading of wills should be bankrupt affairs, little more than legacies of good wishes and snatches of fair poetry. But it’s not just carelessness that empties our pockets. Some things—many things—we... Read more

William Christenberry

2017-01-02T00:09:57-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Poem for the New Year: “In the Candleroom at Saint Bartholomew’s on New Year’s Eve” By Heather Sellers

Last updated on: January 2, 2017 at 12:09 am By Image

This poem moves me and impresses me with its sense of almost-but-not-quite arriving at connection. Everywhere I turn within the walls of this poem, I come face to face with human need and the world’s shortcomings in meeting that need. Mourning her mother, the speaker attempts throughout the poem to do a simple thing: light a candle. Instead, she finds herself confronted with failure and dampening hope. In the candle’s failure to light and in comparing herself to the other... Read more

Melissa Reeser Poulin

poem

Poetry Friday

the new year

2016-12-30T10:52:22-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Poetry Friday: “New Year, Good Work”

Last updated on: December 30, 2016 at 10:52 am By Image

A delightful scene is set in this poem. At the start of the new year, the speaker and some friends are doing volunteer woodwork to repair their church’s altar. As the speaker details the steps of their careful work, we’re carried along by the poem’s base rhythm of iambic pentameter. Soon religious language enters the speaker’s account: as their sawdust fills the church, they feel their labor to be “sanctified,” and the motions of their attentive work become a “ritual.”... Read more

2016-12-28T23:47:26-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Quaecumque Vera: 16 Songs for 2016

Last updated on: December 28, 2016 at 11:47 pm By Guest Contributor

By Joel Heng Hartse You do not have to feel guilty about loving music. Please keep this in mind. Alan Jacobs, in his The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, writes, “read what gives you delight…and do so without shame.” Amen, I say, and don’t be afraid to apply this to the music you like, too. There are no guilty pleasures. Listen to what moves you, regardless of whether you think you are supposed to like it, or... Read more

2016-12-27T23:43:46-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Thirty Minutes Without My Phone

Last updated on: December 27, 2016 at 11:43 pm By Tania Runyan

The fact that a half-hour meal alone in an IHOP occasions its own blog post shows just how far I’ve devolved in my practice of solitude. I’ve gotten pretty good at putting my phone away when going out for meals with friends and family. But when I’m alone in a waiting room, in line at the store, or even on the sidewalk waiting for the pedestrian light, I reach for that phone like an itch. Of course I love the... Read more

Personal Reflection

Tania Runyan

living in the present

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