On one level, the book can be read as a dialogue about the active versus the contemplative life.
DIVINE INTOXICATION
THE TRANSUBSTANTIATION
So why does it matter whether we believe that, in the Transubstantiation, the bread becomes the Real Body of Christ? For those of us who do believe, what does it mean? How does our belief manifest in our daily lives?
MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN, SCIENTIST AND ARTIST
Read up on this amazing 17th-c. caterpillar obsessive, butterfly aficianado, explorer and artist!
I WILL NOT LET THEE GO
Since turning 70, I basically think about death ALL THE TIME. Not in a morbid way but in the sense that my death is always before me.
DEATHSONG: MEDIEVAL CHANT WITH DR. ELAINE STRATTON HILD
Dr. Hild’s fervent wish is that we might all come to play music, chant, or sing around the bedside of our dying loved ones.
BRIGHT FIELD
One day last week I tramped through a dark wood, up a very steep hill, and around a couple of bends and came out at the edge of meadows and meadows full of…could it be?…I was pretty sure…heather! I’ve never seen my namesake flower growing in the wild so this was a rare thrill.
THE FREEDOM TO DO GOOD
We’ve heard a lot about freedom these past weeks, but the only real freedom, it seems to me, is the freedom to do good. That is a freedom that can neither be granted, nor revoked, by any government, political body, or man-made law.
THE PILGRIMAGE CONTINUES
While the Tucson summer is of course baking hot, Ireland by all accounts is perpetually freezing, so I have purchased a little rain poncho and will definitely layer and bring a couple of scarves.
KNEADED: L.A. BREAD STORIES
At a buck apiece, everyone can afford puff-puff. “The one thing I always cry about and why I love Los Angeles is that the community we serve is not just one community…the African Chop Truck serves everybody.”
MY FAMOUS BROTHER JOE
My brother Joe is a 40-year veteran of the punk scene and frontman for The Queers.
We had a long zoom chat the other day, yukking it up about our childhoods on the NH coast, reminisching about our drinking years, and and giving thanks for having followed our respective callings. Watch it on YouTube!
MY SHEEP HEAR MY VOICE
Do you ever feel that you have “nowhere to lay your head”–in and out of the Church? Join the club. The good news is that makes us available and open to everyone.
CHAT ROOM
I, for one, am hungry for this kind of conversation. I think many of us are. What’s more interesting than hearing each other’s stories?
MARIPOSAS NOCTURNAS: THE SPLENDOR OF MOTHS
As with a late Beethoven quartet, or a Cézanne still-life, the intensity of the beauty is almost too much to bear.