It is not a far drive from the Cities, but the stars at night will tell you it is far enough — to gain a new view, to see distant light not always apparent at home, to hear the gifts carried by silence. The Christine Center, where I was recently on retreat, welcomes all visitors with […]
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As I write this, the snow is swirling outside my window so fully I can’t see the pine trees just 20 feet away. It brings to mind an extraordinary and terrifying passage in a favorite novel, Driftless, by David Rhodes. The scene takes place in the winter on a Wisconsin farm, where Graham and Cora […]
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Earth but cloaks our heaven, Giovanni Giocondo wrote on a Christmas Eve almost 500 years ago. By which I understand him to be saying that the holy glimmers everywhere around us and within us, if we would but look beneath the coverings that conceal it. I beseech you to look, he says and continues: We, judging […]
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The table is set. Flowers arranged and candles burning. The house fragrant with food cooking since morning. Guests arriving with dishes that jostle for space, first in the oven, then on the table. Gathering for the meal, we’ll say grace. But what will we say? Every year, the question rises – what to say thanks […]
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“Every moment happens twice, inside and outside, and they are very different histories.” Zadie Smith Decades ago, when I was studying the who-what-when-where-why’s of journalism, we used to talk about getting the “inside story.” By this we meant the real story told by primary sources – people who experienced or witnessed the events first-hand. Today […]
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My paternal grandparents both emigrated from Germany. Each arrived alone, a teenager carrying a single suitcase. Each, like so many immigrants coming to the United States today, left behind family, homeland, first language and the familiarity that now fills my own life as the air that I breathe and the inheritance my grandparents passed on […]
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In the end the beginning Hurricanes in the south: rain measured by the yardstick, houses flattened by gusts three times faster than the average speed limit. Lights out, power lost from decades of disinvestment completed by the tailwinds passing by. Maps predicting who will be next in line, people in line for water, in line […]
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