Mercy is radical kindness. Mercy means offering or being offered aid in desperate straits. Mercy is not deserved. It involves absolving the unabsolvable, forgiving the unforgivable. Mercy brings us to...
If it is someone else’s problem, you probably don’t have the solution.
I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Cer...
I am positive of only a few things in life, and one is that if you want to have a decent middle and old age, you have to get exercise almost every day.
Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.
How are we going to get through this craziness?' I asked. There was silence for a moment. 'Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe,' he said.
I have a very dark sense of humor. I swear. I have a very playful relationship with Jesus.
There was going to be a spot for me in this joint, the earth, after all. It was never going to be a great match for someone as bright and strange as me, but books were going to make it survivable.
Some aching beauty comes with huge loss, although maybe not right away, when it would be helpful. Life is a very powerful force, despite the constant discouragement. So if you are a person with connec...
I got a lot of things that society had promised would make me whole and fulfilled - all the things that the culture tells you from preschool on will quiet the throbbing anxiety inside you - stature, t...
Most of me was glad when my mother died. She was a handful, but not in a cute, festive way. More in a life-threatening way, that had caused me a long time ago to give up all hope of ever feeling good...
Who knows how much of our stories are true?
When we did art with the kids, the demons would lie down.
We aren't a drop in the ocean, but are the ocean, in drops.
The thing about light is that it really isn’t yours; it’s what you gather and shine back. And it gets more power from reflectiveness; if you sit still and take it in, it fills your cup, and then you c...
Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking.
One thing I know for sure about raising children is that every single day a kid needs discipline.... But also every single day a kid needs a break.
It gets darker and darker, and then Jesus is born. That line came back to me, from out of nowhere, and I decided to practice radical hope, hope in the face of not having a clue.
I love ritual and repetition. Without them, I would be a balloon with a slow leak.
I let my mind wander.
