wrote G.K. Chesterton: “God paints in many colours; but he never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.”
EXISTENTIAL CRISES
DARK WOOD TO WHITE ROSE
Helen M. Luke’s “Dark Wood to White Rose” is a Jungian-Christian take on Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”
VANITY FAIR: HOLLYWOOD CALLING
Here’s how this week’s arts and culture piece begins: Remember the carefree days when we could leave our homes, gather in public places maskless, and take in a museum exhibit of a Sunday afternoon? I did that, way back on February 23. It was right after the Annenberg Space for Photography mounted a presentation, now […]
DISCUSSING MY BOOK RAVISHED
Michael John Cusick, self-described wounded healer and an all-around standup human being, operates a ministry out of Colorado and has a wonderful podcast called Restoring the Soul. Recently he had me on to discuss my newest book, RAVISHED: Notes on Womanhood. You can listen to the podcast HERE.
POUSTINIA
A poustinia is a small sparsely furnished cabin or room where one goes to pray and fast alone in the presence of God. The word poustinia has its origin in the Russian word for desert. One called to live permanently in a poustinia is called a poustinik. I first became familiar with the concept through […]
A JOURNEY ROUND MY BATHROOM
From The Public Domain Review: “In 1790, Xavier de Maistre was 27 years old, and a soldier in the army of the Sardinian Kingdom, which covered swathes of modern-day Northern Italy and Southern France. An impetuous young soldier, he was placed under house-arrest in Turin for fighting an illegal duel; there is no record of […]
WERE YOU THERE WHEN THEY NAILED HIM TO THE CROSS?
This morning I prayed the Stations of the Cross with the monks at Portsmouth Abbey on the coast of Rhode Island. The men were outside in what sounded like a gale-force wind. You could hear the cries of the seagulls. Straining to hear, my ear practically laid against my laptop out here in California, it […]
FOOL FOR CHRIST
in the town of Kowatathere were horses for hirebut I loved you so muchI walked barefoot all the way –Kan’ami, Japanese Noh actor, author, and musician during the Muromachi period (approx. 1336-1573) I’m reflecting this Holy Week that Christ’s whole path to Calvary–the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with […]
LOCKED DOWN IN ASSISI
Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins: Lori King, Professor of Theology, is a U.S. citizen living in Assisi, Italy. She’s been confined to her home home since Sunday, March 8, at 9 pm. We connected recently via phone. “Even before the lockdown, Mass had been suspended. I’d gone to 6 pm Mass […]
AWAKE O YE SLEEPERS
In shaky economic times I must say, I feel right at home. Right away I descend into bunker mentality mode. In fact, having grown up one of eight in a blue-collar home–our father was a bricklayer–I’m more or less always ready for a disaster. I have enough semolina, bulgur, wheat berries, polenta, brown rice, pearl […]
CLOISTERED
Last night we Californians got word that the whole state is in “lockdown”– allowed to leave our homes only for “essential” activities: food, supplies, medicine, doctor, work. All “non-essential” businesses ordered closed. I must say I am peculiarly well-formed for the cloister and in fact have lived like this for months at a time over […]
NOWHERE TO RUN, NOWHERE TO HIDE
I mean that of course in the best possible way. Yesterday morning I went to Mass at the Church of the Assumption in Pasadena, then stayed for a Lenten mission talk by Fr. Francis Benedict of St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, CA. That afternoon I got word that my gym had closed “till further notice” […]
LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID-19
Fun times! Have you noticed that suddenly, overnight, everyone is an epidemiologist? People you’ve known for decades suddenly have a brother-in-law, a very good friend, or a sister (always unnamed, and whom you’ve never once heard mentioned before) who just happens to be an infectious disease specialist and THEY say… Suddenly everyone’s an oligarch: People […]