As I pack up more and more stuff, it’s also interesting to see what’s left; what’s essential as I more or less camp out for a few days. Six 12-ounce packages of Starbucks French roast (I buy them expired on ebay). A giant container of pure cane sugar. A glass of roses from the garden. My portable prayer box (breviary, Magnificat, candle, incense, matches). A small old wooden crucifix. Three rosaries.
THE TRAGICOMEDY OF THE CROSS
IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING
Let’s start off the week with a laugh, and a tear… “He entered my room and said: ‘Poor creature, you who understand nothing. Come with me and I will teach you things which you do not suspect.’ I followed him. He took me into a church. It was new and ugly. He led me up […]
MY PODCAST ABOUT MONEY
Here’s an interview I taped a while back with the wonderful Chloe Langr, of the podcast Letters to Women – Exploring the Feminine Genius. The title is “A Letter to the Woman Hungry for an Honest Conversation About Money.” But if you’re a hungry guy, that’s totally okay, too! Thank you, Chloe!
MARDI GRAS
I’m embarrassed to admit that my eating habits are truly abysmal. I eat standing up, hunched over the kitchen counter; or while wandering through the apartment doing ten other things; or bent over my laptop answering emails, reading the paper, watching movies, researching and/or writing.
MARCH-APRIL SPRING 2021 WRITING WORKSHOP!!
HEATHER KING, SPRING 2021, 8-WEEK WRITING WORKSHOP!!
MARCH 6-APRIL 24, 12-2 PST. $625.
PEACE! BE STILL!
Around 2:00, I glanced at my phone, noticed a Voicemail and saw the transcription: “I have your wallet at the giftshop at the church.” My wallet!
HOBO FOR CHRIST
At first she stayed mostly with friends and, along the way, experienced unexpected healing. “My core wound is the belief that I have to earn love. But everywhere I went, people would say, ‘Don’t leave. Just move in.’ ‘You don’t have to earn love,’ the Lord was telling me. ‘You already are enough.’ ”
ÉLISABETH LESEUR ON GIVING LESS THAN WE EXPECT
“It is a source of pain and difficult sacrifice to have to divine one’s life so much and always to give to each one less than he or she expects.. This sometimes leads others to feel not enough is being done for them, and they perhaps experience some sadness or regret, which becomes painful to her who is the involuntary cause of it.”
CIRCLE PEOPLE
Turns out I’m spending Thanksgiving at home and I’m so grateful! What with the phone, zoom, my many neighbors, Mass, and the long walk I’ll take, I will be far from alone. In fact, I’ve been mightily reflecting upon this past year and the many gifts it’s brought. One of them, maybe, is the message…The […]
I CHOOSE ALL!
A well-known anecdote about St. Thérèse of Lisieux has it that, when offered a basket of lace and other trimmings as a girl and told she could choose one, exclaimed, “I CHOOSE ALL!” As an adult, she extrapolated on the concept and observed, “My God, I choose all! I don’t want to be a saint […]
G.K.CHESTERTON: I AM
Legend has it that around 1910, The Times posed the question to a selection of eminent writers and thinkers: “What’s Wong with the World?” “Dear Sirs,” G.K. Chesterton replied: “I am.”
WHOEVER I AM
“I am a question-asker and a truth-seeker. I do not have much in the way of status in life, nor security. I have been on quest, as it were, from the beginning. For a long time I thought there was something wrong with me: no ambition, no interest in tenure, always on the march, changing […]
HARROWED: LIFE LESSONS FROM THE GARDEN
IT IS HERE. My newest book. the back cover copy. “This is the story of the garden: my first, and perhaps my last. I started it at the age of 64. I’m 68 now. The garden brings me satisfaction, beauty, astonishment, joy. The garden also requires an inordinate amount of worry and work. When I […]
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
Then I learned that when he died, a 40-plus-year-old letter from Riborg Voigt, the first woman he ever loved (of course unrequited), was found in a little leather pouch around his neck. That was when I knew Hans and I were soul-mates.