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personal reflection

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April 2016

April 14, 2016

There Must Be a Word for This

Now spring has come again, the season that’s best for hope. Post-Lenten promises are fresh...

April 11, 2016

A Strange Season for Inter-Christian Families

American culture, at this late and plural hour, seems to have pretty well normalized the...

April 07, 2016

Imitating the Saints

St. Therese once wished aloud that her own mother would die. When her mother scolded...

April 05, 2016

A Dancing Christ

On Holy Saturday, I woke up at my sister's house in northern Minnesota with a...

March 2016

March 31, 2016

A Rabbi, a Priest, and a Wedding: Part 2

Read Part 1 here. By Danielle Leshaw Judaism tells us how to leave. Leaving the...

March 30, 2016

A Rabbi, a Priest, and a Wedding: Part 1

By Danielle Leshaw Father Bill offered a set of instructions. “Walk beside me, never on...

March 29, 2016

Believing in the Beach Boys

The first church I attended as a teenaged new believer swiftly taught me two doctrines:...

March 28, 2016

Fairies and Mystics

On the first day of summer, my daughter created a makeshift microphone in the backyard...

March 22, 2016

Refugees Are People, Not a Crisis

Sometimes the horrors in the news are so overwhelming that I’m left speechless. This is...

March 18, 2016

Dancing on the Way to Prison

By John Bryant I’m standing in a circle with thirty singing and swaying old men...

March 16, 2016

What Happened to Fun?

I was so good, and for such a long time, two weeks at least of...

March 14, 2016

The Living Among the Dead

Thanksgiving Day after I turned four: high fever at dinner, a drive through a blizzard,...

March 10, 2016

Praying the Rosary

By Laura Bramon My first rosary is invisible: a string of children’s voices ricocheting off...

March 08, 2016

Thawing at the Edges

When the spring teases me one day, outplaying the winter dullness for just an afternoon,...

March 02, 2016

Good Enough to Tweet

If you go to any restaurant nowadays, you’ll likely see something that at one time...

February 2016

February 29, 2016

Love Your Enemies for Lent

Another campaign season is upon us with a vengeance. Actually it's campaign seasons—since the U.S....

February 17, 2016

Drive-By Memory

My first memory takes place in Lakewood, CA, a small suburb south of Los Angeles....

February 09, 2016

Honey, Let’s Get Tattoos: Tattoos and Embodiment

Continued from a previous post. Read part 1 here. After my wife Katie and I...

February 04, 2016

Kolam: The Beauty of Uselessness

This one’s for Carin Ruff, and by way of answering my niece Kate’s question. A...

February 01, 2016

How Much God Loves Us

By John Bryant He was born with cerebral palsy and he has it all the...

January 2016

January 27, 2016

Where to Hang Your Grief

My daughters Lydia and Becca, ages 12 and 10, are thoroughly delighted by the contemporary...

January 15, 2016

Honey, I Want a Tattoo

By Brad Fruhauff If Katie had had a tattoo when we met, I probably would...

January 14, 2016

Learning Detachment in the Attic

By Elizabeth Duffy When my cousin became a Dominican sister, she gave away all of...

December 2015

December 07, 2015

After a Thanksgiving Feast

I carry my failure with me. My embarrassment. My shame. It grows. It sets me...

December 01, 2015

Going to the Manger as She Is

By Ann Hedreen I drape a towel over Nick’s head and strap it in place...

October 2015

October 22, 2015

Blessed Are the Tentmakers

For my daughter, Evangeline Sofia, who celebrated her first birthday on the second day of...

October 21, 2015

The Rothko Chapel: The Dark Before the Dawn

By Rebecca A. Spears The few years I lived in Houston’s Menil neighborhood, right behind...

October 20, 2015

The Beast Without

“Isaac’s being a jerk,” my seven year-old, Isaiah, says about his older brother. They have been...

October 14, 2015

Driving the Dark Roads

The other day I got an email from a high-school boyfriend, which drove me headlong...

October 09, 2015

Our Lady’s Football Team

Every Saturday morning in fall I wake up and feel a tinge of disappointment that...