Photo Credit: Pixabay.com In my work as a retreat director and spiritual director, I have been confronted recently with certain questions that are based on a general disposition of a disturbed and, in some cases, deeply confused mind concerning the divisions rampant in society as never before. The question usually asked is: “How can I... Continue Reading →

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com It is finally Spring!!! Join me in the outdoors wandering under Flowering Dogwoods, Magnolias, and the breath-taking Forest Pansy Redwood. Laugh with the dancing daffodils, mischievous lilac bushes, play hide-and-seek with the shy violets. I admire some of my sisters in Cincinnati who are experts on the wildflowers glorifying our woods and... Continue Reading →

Photo credit: Pixabay.com Forgiveness lives in a big tent! It can be offered to institutions as well as persons. It can be part of reconciliation among nations and neighborhoods. But for the most part, it is needed in the small, circumscribed cup of the family, the place where hurts and animosities often slip in and... Continue Reading →

If you’re like me, you are happy to cruise along in the tech world at a minimum of skill and know-how. My family didn’t have a telephone until I was in fourth grade and a television made its debut in our living room when I was in the seventh grade. I punched away at a... Continue Reading →

A few weekends ago I walked into the dining room of our retreat center and was welcomed by the laughing and greetings of a large group of women who were making their annual spring retreat.  This group, and another group that gathers every November, have become very close to me over the many years I have... Continue Reading →

On Saturday, April 22, we will commemorate Earth Day.  Thousands of activities are planned across the globe from celebratory festivals to prayer services, from educational events to planned trips and adventures in places not ordinarily visited.  I hope you will do something to heighten awareness that we humans have been hostile inhabitants of this nurturing Earth at... Continue Reading →

I cannot get enough of the sunshine these days.  I am beyond happy for the coming summer.  Which takes me to baseball, my favorite sport. I didn’t have a chance to write about Women’s History Month in March, so I thought I’d give it a go for the opening of the baseball season.  Yes, there were women in... Continue Reading →

(Article title in Christianity Today, December 2022.) Next Sunday is Easter.  I cannot describe Easter as an event.  To me Easter is God’s love manifested in the triumph of Jesus, God’s Son.  Since it is Love, Easter is a spirit.  After the stone is rolled away, it’s a merging of the universe with the welcoming warmth, exceptional beauty, infectious harmony of... Continue Reading →

Photo Credit: Mary Ann Flannery, SC Holy Week is here for Christians, and Passover begins on Wednesday. Ramadan had begun last March 22. Having been in the Holy Land last September, I can only imagine the teems of people going to the holy sites of their faiths. I took the picture above at the entrance... Continue Reading →

We are traveling two miles east of Jerusalem with Jesus and his disciples.  They are hot and fatigued.  They have just been run out of the Temple surroundings and are breathlessly aware that the collusion between the Jewish priestly hierarchy and the Roman leaders is closing in on Jesus.  They are nervous and worried.  As they wonder where to... Continue Reading →