The examen carved a space between me and the compulsion, just enough to breathe, to think and to make a deliberate choice.
Spirituality
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Living on Scan Time: My life after a cancer diagnosis
What surviving cancer—for now—taught me about life.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Frontline caretakers understand the holiness of vulnerable strangers better than anyone
Many professionals who care for strangers are not religious workers, but they play a pivotal role in reinforcing the imago Dei, the notion that all people are made in the image of God.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Prayer vs. manifesting: A TikTok trend about praying for your future husband taught me the difference
Manifesting techniques abound in the online world. But creators are conflating manifesting with prayer, especially in their love lives.
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
Why Thomas Merton was suspicious of psychedelic drugs
Aldous Huxley convinced me to try psychedelic drugs. Thomas Merton gave me a healthy suspicion of them.
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
A preacher should offer the congregation a challenge—not cheap grace
Listen to Gemma’s homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B, in which she explains how her experience of poverty in Brazil gave radical significance to Christ’s words: “Make your home in me as I make mine in you.”
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Growing Into Motherhood
The joys and challenges of a new child stretched me in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
How to achieve parish unity—with the wisdom of community organizing
Opportunities for authentic encounter were much needed in this parish of separate communities.
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
Kacey Musgraves’s new album ‘Deeper Well’ might be her most spiritual work yet
Kacey Musgraves’s new album is not worship music, but rather songs about theological concepts for a secular audience.
Posted inArts & Culture, Poetry
The timeless Celtic spirituality of John O’Donohue, poet and priest
John O’Donohue focuses on how paying attention to the outer landscape of our world cultivates the inner landscape of our soul.