Latest Reflections
Stories of faith, memory, Scripture, and the quiet ways grace meets us in ordinary life.
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The Citizenship She Gave Up for Love
In 1922, my American-born great-grandmother Anna Motis lost her citizenship when she married John Svagera, a Czech immigrant. Their wedding came mere days before the Cable Act began correcting this injustice, but Anna would wait more than sixteen years to become, legally, what she had always been: an American.
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Bird Still Sounds Like Tomorrow
Remembering Charlie Parker on the 106th anniversary of his birth. There are musicians who belong unmistakably to their time. You hear a few measures and immediately know where you are. The clothes change, recording technology changes, and styles change. Eventually the music becomes a kind of beautiful historical document—something we admire partly because it tells…
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When Prague Said Thank You: The Komenský Club, the Gratias Agit Award, and a Long Road Home
In June 2005, I traveled to Prague with my Czech professor, Míla Šašková-Pierce, to accept one of the Czech Republic’s Gratias Agit Awards on behalf of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Czech Komenský Club. Only years later did I begin to understand just how many generations were standing in that room with us.
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When Mary Finally Came Home: The Queenship of Mary
There are certain words in our Catholic faith that can become so familiar that we stop hearing the human story hidden inside them. Assumption. Queenship. Coronation. We see paintings of Mary floating above the clouds with angels surrounding her. A crown is placed upon her head. Christ sits upon His throne. Everything is gold and…
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The Courage to Say No: Prague Spring 1968 and the Music of Freedom
There is a photograph I have known for a long time. I suppose everyone sees something different when they look at it. Some will notice the Soviet soldier first, his uniform, and shaved head, with the crowd pressing in around him. Maybe they imagine the tanks sitting somewhere just beyond the edge of the frame.…
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What A Good Boss Leaves Behind
I have started writing this several times. Each time, I find myself staring at the screen, trying to figure out exactly what I want to say about Tony Gowan retiring from the City of Papillion. The problem is that “congratulations on your retirement” doesn’t seem like enough. Neither does “thank you for 33 years of…
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Nazareth Was Never the Final Home
There are houses we leave that somehow never quite leave us. Years can pass. Families change. People we love die. Rooms are remodeled. Someone else eventually sleeps in the bedroom that once belonged to us. And yet we can still walk through those houses in our memory. We remember how the light came through a…
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The Freedom to Love: St. Maximilian Kolbe at Auschwitz
There are some saints whose lives are so extraordinary that, if I am being truthful, I sometimes have a hard time knowing what to do with them. St. Maximilian Kolbe is one of those saints. We know the ending of his story. Auschwitz and the starvation bunker. The condemned prisoner who cried out for his…
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The Little House That Leads Us Home
There is something about the story of Our Lady of Walsingham that has always moved me. Perhaps it is because the story does not begin with something grand. There is no enormous basilica. No great cathedral. No throne room. It begins with a house. A little house. And not just any house. The little house…
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