making sense of life in the details
I hadn’t bought asparagus in months as I couldn’t bring myself to spend $4/pound, but we all know that with the spring comes the very tasty and also much lower-priced asparagus, so I had planned on waiting it out. Then came a pandemic, and all thoughts of non-utilitarian vegetables moved pretty far down the list. We... Continue Reading →
I was watching a live feed of a Palm Sunday mass yesterday and the internet connection was cutting in and out, making it a little hard to focus on the readings but at one particular choppy bit, one word came flying out at me in a way it hadn’t before. Barabbas. You know him, he’s... Continue Reading →
I’m a Catholic making beef stew today on a Friday during Lent and I’m not going to eat it. But, Kerry, I hear you saying, didn’t you hear that your local Cardinal Sean O’Malley lifted the obligation to abstain from meat during Lent due to the coronavirus? Yes, friend, I did hear that news, but... Continue Reading →
In this time of crisis, we’re being stripped of quite a lot. Roles, practices, relational habits and interaction, labels, even jobs or our health. In addition, the way we practice our faith has completely changed. Within my own church tradition, Catholics are being told we can confess our sins directly to God without a priest... Continue Reading →
“I just can’t wait until this is all over and things can go back to normal.” I felt the fatigue and worry in my friend’s voice as she spoke these words, and I feel it, too. I want to see my preschool music students face-to-face, want to gather with my friends and family. I want... Continue Reading →
I remember one morning from a few years ago. It was very early, before the sun was even up, and I was driving my high school daughter to a waiting bus for her Washington DC class trip. I hugged her and watched the bus pull away, and on the way home, saw the sun was... Continue Reading →
I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Not even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the sky was empty of planes and no one knew just what horror might come next. Back then, it took a few days for me to feel safe and appropriate about bringing my babies out for a... Continue Reading →
There was a fire in my church. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of destruction, but the smoke damage remediation will take several weeks and so we’ve been unable to have mass. It brings me back to the catastrophic fire which took place at Notre Dame in Paris almost one year ago and how the devastation... Continue Reading →
One of my favorite authors featured a short video on her Instagram last week and I cannot stop thinking about it. In an interview, Kate Bowler speaks about her initial steps into the bewildering and scary journey of stage four cancer and she highlights an interaction with one of her nurses, Meg. At the time,... Continue Reading →
