making sense of life in the details
Whenever my mother took me clothes shopping as an adult, for my birthday or Christmas, she’d watch me head straight for the neutrals and slowly shake her head. She lifted up the versions of the sweater or the jacket that I had picked, but these were red, purple, yellow, or green and she’d implore me to just... Continue Reading →
Today is Good Friday. I listened to the soundtrack from Jesus Christ Superstar as I took a long walk and asked God to help me enter into His story. I experienced a shock of realizing just how clueless everyone around Jesus was as He lived, taught, and died. I’m forty-nine years old, and I’ve experienced a lot... Continue Reading →
We are almost to the one-year anniversary of the time when everything changed. And there’s not a date we can look to, specifically, but there is a feeling we can name when we increasingly understood that something big was happening at this time last year. Maybe it was when you or your dear ones had to... Continue Reading →
Hi friends, I'm five short episodes into the Raised Catholic podcast and I was hoping to get your feedback so I can see if I'm on the right track so far. With the podcast, I am hoping to build a space for cradle Catholics (and others - all are welcome!) who might be struggling with... Continue Reading →
A friend dropped off a large amaryllis bulb in a pretty turquoise pot just before Christmas. As we stood masked in my driveway that day and he handed me the heavy gift bag, there’s no way he could have known the true weight and value of the gift he was giving me. More likely, his wife,... Continue Reading →
Each year between Christmas and New Year’s, I lean in close to discover my word for the year ahead. Last year a scripture caught hold of me hard and I thought for sure that my word was embedded within it. It was Isaiah 43:19, and I scribbled it on an index card and affixed it to... Continue Reading →
I was listening to a podcast which addressed the huge drop in church attendance in America this year. There was a pastor on who explained some of the statistics and the reasons why people aren’t returning to church: fear of getting sick during a pandemic, a break in spiritual habits and patterns, anger at the losses... Continue Reading →
There was a time in my life, over ten years ago, when I gathered the wisdom of three wise men who art in Heaven and prayed for their interceding. Don DeLutis was a teacher, a principal, a civic leader, and a faithful member of our chapel community. He taught me to be a voice for children in... Continue Reading →
I was praying for a particular person recently and felt an image of a bucket of light being poured out at their feet like paint from a can. The light spread like paint, slowly, into a puddle and it was just enough to step in, just enough to give direction but not nearly enough for a... Continue Reading →
Have you ever heard someone say they were “raised Catholic?” or were you raised Catholic yourself? Me too. There’s a lot of us, “raised” from birth as “cradle Catholics”. Strangely, you hear these descriptors far less among people of other faiths. I don’t often hear about people who were “raised“ Jewish, or of “cradle” Protestant Christians or Muslims. The idea... Continue Reading →
