More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it. The Prophet Jeremiah wrote those words more than 2,500 years ago and anyone who struggles with the complexities of love and human relationships will soon enough know of what he speaks. Who indeed can understand the human heart, given some…

We all fear judgement. We fear being seen with all that’s inside us, some of which we don’t want exposed to the light. Conversely, we fear being misunderstood, of not being seen in the full light, of not being seen for who we are. And what we fear most perhaps is final judgement, the ultimate…

Like many others, I was deeply distressed to learn of the recent revelations concerning Jean Vanier. He was a person whom I much admired and about whom on numerous occasions I have written glowingly, so the news about him shook me deeply. What’s to be said about Jean Vanier in the light of these revelations?…

The renowned spiritual writer Ruth Burrows begins her autobiography with these words: “I was born into this world with a tortured sensitivity. For long I have puzzled over the causes of my psychological anguish.” Unfortunately, to our loss, too many spiritual biographies don’t begin like this, that is, by recognising right at the start the…

We are growing ever more distrustful of words. Everywhere we hear people say: “That’s just talk! That’s nothing but empty words!” Empty words are all around us. Our world is full of lies, of false promises, of glittering advertising that doesn’t deliver, of words never backed up by anything. We trust less and less in…

Thirty years ago, John Jungblut wrote a short pamphlet entitled, On Hallowing Our Diminishments. It’s a treatise suggesting ways we might frame the humiliations and diminishments that beset us through circumstance, age and accidents so that, despite the humiliation they bring, we can place them under a certain canopy so as to take away their…

Once during a baseball game in high school an umpire made a very unfair call against our team. Our whole team was indignant and all of us began to shout angrily at the umpire, swearing at him, calling him names, loudly venting our anger. But one of our teammates didn’t follow suit. Instead of shouting…

Recently on the popular US television program Saturday Night Live, a comedian made a rather colourful wisecrack in response to an answer that Nancy Pelosi had given to a journalist who had accused her of hating the President. Pelosi had stated that, as a Roman Catholic, she hates no one – and this prompted the…

Even with the best intentions, even with no malice inside us, even when we are faithful, we sometimes cannot not hurt each other. Our human situation is simply too complex at times for us not to wound each other. Here’s an example: Soren Kierkegaard, who spent his whole life trying to be scrupulously faithful to…

Most of us have heard of St Thérèse of Lisieux, a French mystic who died at age 24 in 1897 and who is perhaps the most popular saint of the last two centuries. She’s famous for many things, not least for a spirituality she called her ‘little way’.  What is her ‘little way’? Popular thought…