“The best thing about being 80 is that you outlive the clocks that have been chasing you. It’s freedom from that lie than anything was ever under control.” – Bob Dylan In anticipation of President Trump’s 80th birthday, The New York Times asked prominent celebrity octogenarians, Bob Dylan, Gloria Steinem, Robert De Niro and others,…
In this season, we spend a lot of time congratulating others on their graduations, or their upcoming jobs or their new marriages. That’s all lovely, but there are times when, while genuinely glad for others, we feel a bit mired in our daily muck, wondering if there is anything new and exciting in store for…
I am currently immersed in a project I undertook in order to get my spiritual groove back: writing out the Gospel of Mark, in longhand. It has been a very interesting, instructive and spiritual enlivening experience and I recommend the practice to anyone – in fact, I may spend the next three Lenten seasons writing…
For years I’ve kept a little ‘prayer list’ close by me, sometimes just a slip of scrap paper with names jotted down haphazardly. There’s also a little book I keep, for ‘long term’ issues — a friend whose wife is enduring cancer treatment, a neurodivergent young man who has defied every dire prognosis. I’m sure…
Utterly life-changing was the day I learned that the Hebrew word most frequently used for ‘sin’ (hhatah) is understood by scholars to mean ‘missing the mark.’ It’s beautiful, isn’t it? If God is central to our lives, and our desire is to live fully “through him, in him and with him,” then our spiritual aim,…
“After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree, the Lord God called to the man and asked him, ‘Where are you?’ He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.’ Then he asked, ‘Who told you that you were naked?’” (Gn 3:8-11) In…
The world is hyperventilating like I’ve never seen it before. Particularly for anyone who watches broadcast news (I don’t) or participates in social media platforms (sadly, I do), the world has been coming at us like one of those egregious music videos where images and scenes are fast-cut and flashing by so quickly you can…
There is a saying, dubiously attributed to St Francis de Sales but it sounds more like Venerable Fulton Sheen to me: “Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer every day, except when we are busy – then we need an hour.” It’s a clever phrase – and true, too. When parenthood and…