This past weekend I attended a mini online-retreat guided by poet-photographer Pat Leyko Connelly. Pat is familiar to many on social media for the three-line “haiku prayers” she posts daily along with stunning photographs of scenes near her home in Vermont. Her poems and photographs are now collected in a…

If you are like me, perhaps you have been having trouble sleeping at night with so much tragedy swirling in the world. Perhaps you too can’t let go of the images of Gaza’s wounded children, desperate parents, exhausted medical workers, and dead bodies piling up amid the rubble. The mass…

I attended a talk this past week where the presenter challenged us to reflect on how we are promoting “right-doing” in the midst of the chaos enveloping our country and world. He asked us whether we believe the world is leaning toward what Jesuit spiritual teacher Teilhard de Chardin called…

I have a great appreciation for the values that frame monastic life — values such as listening, community, hospitality, simplicity, prayer and praise. I try continually to incorporate them into my work and family life. One monastic value, though, has proved more difficult to apply — that of stability. If…

Reading or watching the news is often a trying experience. So many senseless killings, public scandals and unrelenting political vitriol. There is one newspaper, though, whose pages I look forward to reading. …

When a memorial service took place last year for Bob Abernethy, the beloved anchor of the PBS-TV news show I worked for, the program’s executive producer recalled how in 20 years of working with Bob, no angry words ever passed between them. …

We live much of our lives crossing the intersection of joy and sorrow. This became even more apparent to me in recent days. On Monday, I received word that my first cousin Peter Valente had died after fighting heart disease and having one organ after another shut down. On Thursday…

Several times this past summer, I’ve accompanied a friend on Sundays to her Mennonite Church. The Mennonites have a strong tradition of social action and the practice of non-violence. Though I miss the ritual of the Catholic Mass, I’ve appreciated Pastor Kevin Chupp’s compelling sermons. Lately he has been plumbing…

Several years ago, I spent Christmas at Mount St. Scholastica, a women’s Benedictine monastery in Atchison, Kansas. The retired abbot from the men’s monastery down the road spent Christmas Eve there too because a severe snowstorm was predicted and the sisters didn’t want Father Owen to risk driving in steep…