Thanksgiving is next week, and it will be different this year than ever before. Like many people, we will be staying home rather than traveling to be with family members in different parts of the country. And like them, our hearts are torn over not being able to spend the holiday with loved ones, whether they live across the street, across the country, or “over the river and through the woods,” as the old song goes. This is also a year when many people are [...]
“Whenever there’s a mess like this, I try to look for the message in the mess,” my friend told me a few days ago. “And then I try to find the miracle in the message.” As you might guess, my friend is a very faith-filled person. I have seen her step out in faith when most people – myself included – would be paralyzed by fear, indecision, or doubt. The statement she made came as she was telling me about a close friend of hers [...]
For some reason, all day yesterday – Thursday – it felt to me like it was Friday. That used to happen often on days right before or after holidays or vacations, but not since we retired and moved to Georgia three years ago, when there was no longer much difference between weekdays and weekends. And it certainly hasn’t happened since stay-at-home guidelines went into effect in mid-March. I can’t attribute the feeling to the 4th of July weekend coming up, because holidays going back as [...]
A tradition is, by definition, something that is repeated year after year. Even so, traditions change over time. Kids grow up and go off on their own, families that used to live within a few miles of each other are now spread out across the country, and lifestyles of days gone by simply don’t fit our way of life anymore. Easter, like Christmas, has both sacred and secular traditions, and I now find myself thinking about all the Easter traditions I have taken part in [...]
As you probably know, I’m a look-at-the-bright-side, if-life-gives-you-lemons-make-lemonade kind of person – in my real life, and also in my writing. But yesterday, as I was trying to write my blog for this week, I was having more trouble than usual seeing any “bright side” in the world right now. A new, deadly virus that originated in China has killed hundreds of people and is starting to spread across the globe. Every day brings news of more cases and casualties, and included among the dead [...]
Most of our time in Uganda had to do with poultry farming. But the most heartwarming and rewarding time for me came on the day I spent several hours walking through the village of Ssenyomo, carrying a tote bag filled with wooden crosses that I distributed to members of this largely Catholic community. The crosses were carved and donated by a retired gentleman from my church who is well-known for his woodworking skills as well as his generosity. We’re members of the same church group, [...]
“She’s transitioning,” the nurse told us, which was a lot more comforting to hear than, “She’s dying.” “Transitioning” made it sound as if she were simply moving from one phase of life to another, and that’s actually what she was doing. A booklet given to us by the hospice chaplain contained a poem that described dying in terms of a ship sailing away toward the horizon, getting smaller and smaller in our sight, but not in reality. On a far distant shore, one beyond our [...]
My first-ever trip abroad was with a tour group to Paris in 2005. We had a full and glorious itinerary, visiting the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, Monet’s Garden, Sacre Coeur, and other famous and not-so-famous-but-still-wonderful sites. Sadly, Notre Dame was not among them. It was on our original itinerary, but the day we left the States for Paris was the day Pope John Paul II died. In the following days and weeks, Catholic churches around the world – including Notre Dame, of course – [...]
It was just starting to drizzle as I got to my car after a meeting of my church group. I wasn’t carrying an umbrella, because it had been sunny and clear when the meeting started – although, to be honest, I rarely carry an umbrella anyway. If it looks like it’s going to rain, I usually just wear a jacket with a hood. As I got in my car, I could see dark, angry-looking clouds racing across the sky. There’s a nasty storm coming, I [...]