Life, death and the home country

No monk should ever defend another in the monastery. Nor should he take sides in an argument…. We decree that no one should be permitted to ostracize or to strike any one of his brothers; and if any monk should break this rule, let him be publicly reprimanded, that the others may learn from h

I met the monk, before he was a monk, on Facebook. The message icon flickered to life when an actor we both know made the connection: two writers, two creative people, two weirdoes, two Catholics. Perhaps we’d like to get acquainted? The monk back then had a different name; let’s call hi

When my oldest son Peter was almost 4 years old, we arrived at Sunday Mass, hurriedly walking in a few minutes late, when he noticed the prayer candles in the back corner of the church. He was mesmerized. He asked, “Mommy, what are those?” As the mother of a child who had been labeled as

As this winter gets underway in earnest, I say, go ahead and break me. Plunder me, take me down, so I can be made new. Maybe that is exactly what I need—not merely a rest but a reinvention.

Jan. 31, 2015, would have marked the 100th birthday of the American Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton.