Lent always seems to sneak up on me. As someone who really tries to intentionally observe the Lenten season, I hate feeling rushed to come up with “what I’m doing for Lent.” Furthermore, it has been my general observation that those hurried Lenten commitments made without prayer or much reflection tend to be a bit more… well, superficial. I’m giving up sweets for Lent. I’m giving up soda for Lent. I’m giving up chocolate for...
I recently binge-watched the original Netflix series, The Crown, during my holiday break. The Crown is a series based on Queen Elizabeth II’s story on becoming queen and facing the many challenges of being the head of the United Kingdom through the decades. As the longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II has been reigning for more than 65 years since 1952. I started watching the series based on the recommendation of friends and colleagues. Since...
It’s funny to think about how expensive education is. These repositories of knowledge called Universities that provide the key to a better future. First, they require you to leverage that future in the form of student loans. 30k later and half a Masters degree (the 1st 20k was from those good old undergrad years) and I am just now figuring that out. By the time I am done with my education I could possibly spend...
It’s no secret that some of the best books are children’s books. A few weeks ago, I was asked: “If someone were to really get to know you, what three books (besides the Bible) would they really need to read?” (Great conversation question, right?) My husband and I tried to answer for each other to see how close we came to guessing what the other had in mind. Richard’s guessed Dante’s The Divine Comedy, T.S....
Whelp, I guess this is now a travel blog. For the holidays, my wife and I traveled to Istanbul to spend time with my family. Neither of us had been to Turkey before, so every prior conception of this place was about to be challenged. I kept joking that my only frame of reference was the iconic picture of the Hagia Sophia in the afternoon, and thus, Istanbul was dusty, arid, and perpetually bathed in...
If you haven’t seen “The Last Jedi”, don’t continue scrolling…SPOILER ALERT! … … … … … … … … … … The Last Jedi was one for the books (er…films). The story was plain and simple. The Resistance was running away from the overpowering First Order. The entire movie began with their evacuation and ended with their getaway. There’s nothing new or unique to this episode. In many ways, it was similar to the first...
Last week we celebrated Christmas, and later this week we’ll be celebrating Epiphany. Although you wouldn’t know it from the way that Christmas is typically celebrated in America – beginning sometime in November and culminating on December 25th – Christmas is a 12 day celebration (hence the famous song). Christmas (in the West) officially ends with the start of Epiphany on January 6th. What is Epiphany? This is the day in which the church celebrates...
This week, a woman at my church faces the harrowing decision between two Christmases. On the one hand, she could join a few friends and the son from which she has been estranged, risking the possibility of running into the guy who things “didn’t work out with.” It would be too uncomfortable for her to ask the hostess whether this man has RSVP-ed one way or the other. On the other hand, she could join the just-this-month widowed...
The Showings: Lady Julian of Norwich 1342-1416 I Julian, there are vast gaps we call black holes, unable to picture what’s both dense and vacant: and there’s the dizzying multiplication of all language can name or fail to name, unutterable swarming of molecules. All Pascal imagined he could not stretch his mind to imagine is known to exceed his dread. And there’s the earth of our daily history, its memories, its present filled with the...
O come! O come! Emmanuel! And ransom captive Israel; That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear. Advent is a time of mournful waiting. Participants in this season undergo a theatrical embodiment of the struggles of the people of God. In this drama, the Church relives, in a sense, a time in history in which the Messiah had not yet visited his people. We participate in such a drama in order...
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