In the middle of a muggy summer in southern Indiana, with daytime temperatures near or over 100 degrees, it is hot on our little organic vegetable farm in the Ohio River valley. And although we have central air conditioning in our home, this summer we decided not to turn it on. Why has my family ch
Faith in Focus
Illness, Here Is Thy Sting: A review of ‘Sicko’
Larry and Donna Smith had it good. He worked as an engineer, she as a newspaper editor. They had a happy family and their health—the middle-class American dream. Then Donna was diagnosed with cancer; and Larry had a heart attack, and then another, and another. And the real nightmare began. Alt
My Confirmation blunder: A look back at a special day
It was not until I was confirmed, at about age 10, that I got a chance to pick a name for myself—a second name, but still a name that, unlike my baptismal name, was my choice. Confirmation was another one of those “when I call your name, march quietly up to the front of the […]
Like a Cedar of Lebanon: Meeting the monk within
What I learned from my uncle, the monk
Just a Little More Faith: When Sam Rockwell Played Judas Iscariot
“I wasn’t raised religious and I don’t know anything about religion,” he said in 2004.
Deaths Door: Why must we turn our eyes from suffering?
Why must we turn our eyes from suffering? A reflection on my mother’s death.
A Visitation: Two strangers unexpectedly bring home the pain of war.
Two strangers bring home the pain of war.
15 Minutes to Let God Lead: Walking with Francis de Sales and Ignatius Loyola
The lessons of Francis de Sales and Ignatius Loyola
A Dinosaur Ponders The Latin Mass
We are fast becoming extinct, we dinosaur Catholics who passed through childhood, adolescence and into adult years with the Latin Mass. Now men and women in the generations after us are talking a lot about the Latin Mass. Perhaps my personal recollections of the journey from Latin to English, surely
Preserving Catholic Identity: Responses to Wilson Miscamble
Responses to Fr. Wilson Miscamble
