Every day I stand and watch this intersection of four roads that is such a symbolic intersection of all of life. I look out over my current little corner of the world through a smudged floor-to-ceiling window. From the time I pull back the paisley curtain, blinking at the light pouring in my room, to […]
To Hear the Silence Speak
by on January 30, 2019 1 Comment
The quiet is palpable but not heavy. In the way the warmth of a fire eases down into your very bones, the quiet here is the bearer of a strange kind of comfort. It isn’t the absence of sound. Every tiny noise reverberates off the white stone arches of the abbey. A monk coughs in […]
Acedia and the Gift of Epiphany
by on January 2, 2019 Leave a Comment
Autumn had the potential to be an exciting season. My daughter started her freshman year of high school. She loved all her classes, flourished in the drama department, and was content in ways that delighted me. My son played fall football, and began his final year of middle school. Both of them were happy, settled, […]
Glory on the Doorstep
by on December 13, 2018 Leave a Comment
It’s here, you know. All around you. Wherever you may live, however beautiful or troubled your life might be at this particular moment in time, it’s near you, as near as your breath. I could palpate it in the room where my mother was dying last year. I see it almost every time I look—really […]
Luddite for Lent: A Phone-Fasting Testimony
by on April 12, 2018 15 Comments
I did it. For Lent, I dumbed my Smartphone down to calls, texts, podcasts and maps, uninstalled all social media, and disabled my internet browser. Then I sank into the silence and waited. At first, it felt like a house when the power goes out—too quiet. Where is the buzzing refrigerator noise I never noticed […]
