Latest Reflections
Stories of faith, memory, Scripture, and the quiet ways grace meets us in ordinary life.
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Honoring Sacred Ground: Prayerful Memorial Day Reflections
And so begins another summer, barbecues, parades, vacations, and relaxation. Yet before the festivities begin, we pause to remember. Taking time to once again stroll over the sacred ground where our loved ones, our heroes, and countless other unknowns lie sleeping, waiting in perpetual hope. We bring flowers, stones, and flags, recounting timeless stories and…
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Quelling the Restless Heart
Pope Leo XIV and the Augustinian “Restless Heart” Through the ,now, more two millennia of Roman pontiffs, there are names that continue to resound through the centuries, think St. Peter, St. Gregory the Great, and St. John Paul the Great, and names that have silently fallen into oblivion, Agapetus II, for example doesn’t often surface…
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And Yet We Call This Friday Good
Arguably the greatest English-language poet of the 20th Century, T.S. Eliot, wrote, with brutal realism, in his poem “East Coker,” The wounded surgeon plies the steelThat questions the distempered part;Beneath the bleeding hands we feelThe sharp compassion of the healer’s artResolving the enigma of the fever chart. A devout Anglican, Eliot surely would have known…
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Infinite Love: Nothing Safer Than Daddy’s Arms
Yesterday I had the opportunity to take my daughter to the pumpkin patch. A day off of school collided perfectly with her birthday and was a great chance for a Daddy-Daughter day. As a newly minted 8-year-old she was anxious to show me how mature she was. Bravely stating she was old enough for the…
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Give Me Your Fire, I’ll Do Your Work
“What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe.” ~ Flannery O’Connor The great fifty days of Easter are now over. It is now time for us, as Christians, to step…
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Grandma’s Hands, They Really Came In Handy
As spring flowers once again begin to bloom, I am drawn to happy memories of Grandma. Some of my very earliest and favorite memories are of learning how to plant flowers in Grandma’s backyard beds. Of planting an apple seed in a tin can and week by week watching it grow. Learning the importance of…
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Listening for the Postman’s Atonal Whistle
(Author’s note: Sometimes writing takes off in a completely different direction than what you had intended. I initially set out to write this post as a biopic tribute to Dr. Anton Webern (this will now be forthcoming), for what would have been his 140th birthday. After coming up with this title, however, my fingers took…
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The Trouble With Hello is Goodbye: Saying Goodbye with Love
This is the post I almost didn’t write. It’s easy for me to wax philosophically, or historically, or musically, for hours. Although I can and do get extremely emotionally charged about these topics, they don’t require delving into the depths of my soul, the most closed off places of my emotional being. Talking about any…
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A New Starting Place: Holland, Texas 1912
A continuation of Ján Švagera’s biography. Featuring his initial taste of life in America. A surprise taste of home and his coming of age.
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