I read about a book a week. Sometimes for reviews. Sometimes for fun.
I get asked often what I am reading, so I thought I’d make this a regular feature on my website. Maybe you’ll discover a new read or reminded of one you’ve been wanting to pick up.
Read MoreI have a theory. It is very unofficial. I haven’t done any scientific research on it. I wouldn’t even know where to begin – well, especially since I am not a scientist. Here’s my theory: Those people who go around the table and say what they are thankful for at Thanksgiving dinner – they are happier than those who don’t.
Read MoreI know a woman who used to watch the news religiously. She would get caught up in the latest mandate, scandal, or expose until it took over all her waking hours. She obsessed over these stories until she was so incredibly anxious, she forgot how to live.
Read MoreAs Catholic Christians we seem to be most comfortable sharing our faith by our acts of service. This year Pope Francis challenges us to share our stories. Stories is how the church began.
Read MoreContrary to popular narratives, Motherhood and Creativity might not be opposed but rather intricately, intimately linked. Read my essay On Bending the World to Our Vision for Dappled Things.
Read More“Perhaps someday we’ll recall with joy even these things”
These are Aeneas’s words in Virgil’s The Aeneid; spoken to encourage his men in the face of hardship. They are also the words of Lucille, the seventeen-year-old narrator of Josephine Humphreys’ novel Rich in Love, spoken to encourage herself. This is the story of the unravelling of the Odom family and the seventeen-year-old who tries to keep them together.
Read More"When I hear “Love is love,” I know it is simply not true. My love looks nothing like the love of God. Love that gave up both his only Son and his own life for us. Love that suffered physically, emotionally and spiritually for us. Love that we can never be separated from. Love that banishes fear — and hate. And while we are still his enemies, while we hated him, while we still hate him, he loved us first. It is easy to love those who are like us, or those we like, but those we hate? Those who actively pull away?"
Read MoreI think of these words as a directive. They are my prayer for my vocation as a mother, that I would teach my sons to see the life at play in everything.
Read MoreThere is a tenderness of language in Julian of Norwich’s A Revelation of Love. These sixteen mystical revelations manifested at what Julian had thought was her deathbed one night over several hours.
Read MoreMiddle school is an awkward time as it is, and now these young people have to deal with it during the disconnect of a global pandemic and wearing masks that hide our subtle facial expressions and stifle our mumbled words.
Read More"My life story has been one of learning to be loved by God." My latest column for NorthWest Catholic What is my Identity? I wrote this as a love letter to the middle schools I see struggling to understand who they are.
Read More“No commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid.”
Read MoreInspired by Jon M Sweeney’s new book, Peter Faber: A Saint for Turbulent Times, my reflection on Peter Faber, a gentle saint for Loyola Press
Read MoreHave you ever wanted to get inside the mind of a teenage girl? Me either, but this is exactly where we live for 229 pages in E. Lockhart’s The Boyfriend List.
Read MoreI don’t think any of us had grown up feeling like art was something we could approach. Graffiti, silkscreen and maybe Disney were for the likes of us. But the stuff in museums, that was for kids in John Hughes movies or people who lived in New York. Not us.
Read MoreI have signed a contract with Liturgical Press to write a biography on BRIAN DOYLE for their People of God Series.
Looking forward to getting to know Doyle even better as I contemplate his life and writing.
Read MoreThis year, I found out I can be a lot happier with a simpler life.
Read MoreHonored to be included in this collection of Examen stories for Three Minute Ministry Mentor. If you have every wondered about praying this Examen, this is a great resource and inspiration.
Read MoreMolly McCully Brown cannot forget she has a body. Many of us can. We float through life without recognizing the way we move from one place to another. Brown lives with severe cerebral palsy. She is “visibly disabled” so she must “talk about [her] body everywhere [she] goes.” In this captivating collection of essays Brown explores living with this body; hating it, learning to love it, what she says to her body, what it says to her, where she has taken her body and where she has pushed it to its limits.
Read MoreLike St. Ignatius, we all have "Cannonball Moments", a moment where your story could have taken a darker path, but instead brought into God’s brilliant light. I wrote about one of mine for Ignatian Spirituality's #31DayswithIgnatius
Thrives on moments where storytelling, art and faith collide.
