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August 2014

August 21, 2014

The Gift of Gravy Days

Well, I’ve reached my three score and ten years. It must sound positively ancient to...

July 2014

July 14, 2014

The Gay Science and Nietzsche’s Prayer Rant

There’s a place in Nietzsche’s The Gay Science where he really lets Christians have it....

June 2014

June 17, 2014

Inner Peace Part 2: Mirror and Furnace

Yesterday I traced the spirituality of a Zen Garden stroll, then of meditation based on...

June 06, 2014

A Jew Prays in Venice, Part 2

Continued from yesterday. On the pleasant train ride from Florence to Venice, my wife Laurie...

March 2014

March 05, 2014

Risen Words

A book was sleeping inside me. It was somewhere deep and warm, somewhere just beneath...

February 2014

February 05, 2014

Searching for a Rabbi

We’re searching for a rabbi. We’re looking at the red tag rack at SteinMart, we’re...

December 2013

December 20, 2013

Blue Christmas

A few years ago, I learned about a church—an Evangelical Free Church—that holds an annual...

December 02, 2013

Living Advent

“What should I do for Advent this year, Bill?” The year was 1993. Bill had...

November 2013

November 27, 2013

The Sabbath and Liberal Arts Education, Part 2

The Hebrew word for intention (also, direction) is kavanah. In The Sabbath World, Judith Shulevitz...

November 01, 2013

Requiescat in Pace

Give them rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine on them. The just will...

October 2013

October 23, 2013

Only God is an Atheist, Part 2

It was not out of sheer flattery that Thomas Merton compared Flannery O’Connor to Sophocles,...

October 22, 2013

Only God is an Atheist, Part 1

When she was twenty-one years old, far from home and as yet uncelebrated, Flannery O’Connor...

September 2013

September 11, 2013

Spiritual Counsel Part 2: Prayer and the Desert

As I wrote yesterday, my spiritual director, Fr. Bill Shannon, had said early in our...

June 2013

June 25, 2013

Pondering Prayer

I had a problem with prayer. It’s not that I didn’t think of God or...

May 2013

May 15, 2013

A Corporal Work of Mercy

I was nearly two weeks late, so I already knew the answer, but I took...

May 14, 2013

Deliver Us from Evil

Guest Post By Nancy Nordenson The day after the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school...

May 08, 2013

The Marrow of Prayer

Early this year, Spanish researchers published a peer-reviewed paper considering the evidence of social learning...

March 2013

March 15, 2013

Rodeo and the Church Calendar

Despite my Christian upbringing, I didn’t grow up with the church calendar. Easter was a...

March 08, 2013

Can I Offer Up My Suffering?

“Pain is an evil, suffering is an evil. We mustn’t desire it. We don’t desire...

February 2013

February 28, 2013

The Way of a Pilgrim

When it comes to music, I am a lover of routine. My iTunes playlists are...

February 19, 2013

Looking at the Real

A Guest Post by Brian Volck Monks, I've found, having spent some time with them over the...

January 2013

January 15, 2013

Silence Wounds, Silence Heals

It was there all along. Troubling me. It hurt me and aroused my sympathy for...

December 2012

December 07, 2012

The Eclipse of the Airport Chapel

The San Francisco International Airport has a yoga room, but no chapel. At least that’s...

November 2012

November 02, 2012

Listening to a Stranger’s Story

I am boarding a plane to Detroit, and so is she, her thick coat falling...

August 2012

August 20, 2012

Rediscovering Rilke

Like many people, I discovered the writings of Rainer Maria Rilke in college. I took...

July 2012

July 17, 2012

Praying the Divine Office with Flannery O’Connor

For over twenty-five years, my husband and I have prayed morning and evening prayer together....

July 09, 2012

The Stations of the Cross on the A Train, Part Three

—Continued from Friday My morning commute to work on the New York City subway during...

July 06, 2012

Stations of the Cross on the A Train, Part Two

In the first installment of this essay, I told of a project by a British...

May 2012

May 31, 2012

Prayer in Five Parts

“Prayer…is always available to us.” –St. Seraphim of Sarov I I sit atop my red...