Magazine

Lent can be a disorienting, dislocating time, and sometimes it seems that it observes us more than we observe it. Twice recently I had the feeling that Lent was observing me and gently tweaking at my mind and heart, not without a smile on its face. The first of these moments happened in the middle o

We have been mulling over “the good” around our Catholic Worker community in South Bend recently, tending to attach to that abstract notion memories of our flesh-and-blood friend, Mike Lawson. He was murdered just before Christmas. His body was discovered over two weeks later along with

I remember watching a television episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I would like to say I was watching it with my kids, but actually I was watching for my own interest, without them. Mr. Rogers was interviewing the Wicked Witch of the West from the classic film The Wizard of Oz. For the b

In a Dilbert cartoon, “Mike the Vegan” takes pride in claiming that he uses “no animal products whatsoever.” Dilbert reminds him, though, that his clothing was made on sewing machines that use electricity produced from fossil fuels. The last panel shows Mike walking down the

The summer solstice was around the corner, but our seasonal fog had not yet appeared. Instead, we were experiencing day after day of clear, brilliant skies. Without any shades on our second-story bedroom window, I could raise up my head at first light and survey from my pillow what seemed to be a ne

A cockroach clicks

Vital Care

The reasons given in your editorial for the condition of the homeless of our country (Homelessness: A Solvable Problem, 3/5) are on target. Many of the homeless are mentally ill and in need of care that would provide a structured setting and promote recovery in most