Blog
June 13, 2021
The talkative man is not stable on the earth Thi phrase is from the extensive treatment of humility by St. Benedict. Chapter seven, the reading for this past Monday, June 7 was: The ninth degree of humilityis that a monk restrain his tongue and keep silence,not speaking until he is questioned.For the Scripture showsthat “in much speaking there is no escape from sin” (Prov. 10:19)and that “the talkative man is not stable on the earth” (Ps. 139:12). When I read it last Monday morning, the words echoed in my mind and have not left. Augmented and amplified by its antecedent: […]
June 6, 2021
Ever think about people from your past? Well, sure, we all do. Especially teachers or professors who changed our lives. Or bosses we were privileged to work for. And, of course, those rare friendships lost through a move, or a divorce, or some kind of disagreement which could not be resolved. But I had never heard of thinking about people from your past as “good spritual practice” until listening to Fr. Alphonse Guilder‘s homily for Wednesday’s daily mass. Fr. Alphonse was speaking of the reading from Tobit: the one detailing Angel Raphael’s restoration of Tobit’s sight and exorcism of Sarah’s […]
May 30, 2021
It’s Memorial Day Weekend Traditionally, Memorial Day opens the gates to summer: barbeques, beaches and bathing suits, concerts. But this holiday (holy day) is so much more than summer fun. Since we are obligated to honor those countless men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice, shouldn’t we think about the cost of freedom? It’s Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day’s beginning was, fittingly, during the Civil War. According to the Library of Congress, southern women decorated the graves of dead soldiers long before the war’s end. June 1, 1861 may be the first such grave to be decorated in Warrenton, […]
May 23, 2021
Thinking about heaven and hell Today is Pentecost. This day marks the end of fifty days of joyous liturgical celebration of death’s destruction by Jesus when the Father raised Him from the dead. It follows seven days after the Great Sunday or Jesus’ ascension into heaven. And commerorates the descent of the Holy Spirit “in tongues of flame” upon the disciples. The Spirit, Jesus explains, could not be released until He ascends into heaven and takes his seat at the right hand of the Father. I will send the Paraclete who will teach you all things. The Gospel readings for […]
May 16, 2021
St. Paul is speaking to the Athenians Probably because I spent time in Athens during a long-ago ten-day journey to Greece, St. Paul’s speech to the Athenians always pierces through my skull to ping around in my head. This past Wednesday, his words cut more deeply than usual. Plunging deeply into my heart and psyche, they leave red streaks. Just so does my memory of sitting alone in the Acopolis of Athens become so vivid that it feels like yesterday. He made from one the whole human raceto dwell on the entire surface of the earth,and he fixed the ordered […]
May 9, 2021
The labor of obedience: For many years, the word obedience served as a lightning rod to me. The concept connoted all that I disliked about being female: Powerlessness, submissiveness, conformance, passivity and… And yet, feminism offered no viable solution. Fundamentally, feminists blamed men for whatever ailed us and seemed fixed on adopting the role of victim, seeking redress in legislation and our culture of euphemisms. But then I became a Christian Catholic and a few years later, an Oblate of St. Benedict. And that word, like so many others in the vocabulary of faith became something I embraced; at times, […]
May 2, 2021
We stiff-necked people: hearts and ears uncircumcised The reading for the April 13th daily mass was from the Gospel of John. The passage begins, “Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it wills and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” And ends with, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of God be lifted up so that everyone who believes in […]
April 25, 2021
Ode to Shadow-I can’t stay any longer John was watching our boy panting, lurching because his back legs barely support him, yet incapable of stopping the relentless pacing that exhausted and caused him intense pain. And then John said, “I can’t stay any longer, I’ve stayed as long as I could.” A wholly perfect translation of this past Monday morning when Shadow let us know it was time. You think you’re ready. You see the fur whitening, energy dropping, diminishing interest in eating. Then the confusion, ataxia, muscle wasting which create a perfect storm of misery. You tell yourself that […]
April 18, 2021
The Death of a Monarch The late consort of Queen Elizabeth II was a paradigm of the Age of Stoicism. That statement in Francis Phillips’ article, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, grabbed me. Enough to write this week’s piece about the late husband of the Queen of England. It’s that phase, “a paradigm of the age of stoicism” which made me curious enough to ponder the death of a monarch. More on stoicism later. But first some background. An anglophile I am not. But like most of us, a British accent gets my attention. Somehow the accent confers more knowledge, […]
April 11, 2021
Are you the only one who does not know? Dear Brothers and Sisters, in our time…The concealment of God is part of contemporary man’s spirituality, in an existential almost subconscious manner, like a void in the heart that has continued to grow larger and larger. Pope Benedict Just so, the road to Emmaus, the Gospel reading for Wednesday, April 7th, in the Christian liturgy serves as metaphor for humanity. Whether believers or not; consciously or unconsciously, all seven billion of us walk beside the God-man and ask Him, “Are you the only one who does not know about what they […]
April 4, 2021
The irresistible essence of divinity We all feel it: The magnetic, magnificence of Beauty. Whether in sunsets, ocean surfs, newborn infants or soaring orchestral chorus, our hearts soar, are lifted up in what feels like an echo of something so yearned for that we cannot express it. During the many years I considered myself an atheist, agnostic or another label that felt fitting, a sunrise or operatic aria could drop me to my knees figuatively or literally. I feel confident that even those most immersed in our woke culture are goaded by the irresistible essence of divinity. Now that we […]
March 28, 2021
Praying The Old Testament: Mirror for you and me. “Catholics pray the Old Testament? Really?” The speaker was a Jewish friend. Agrressively atheist, yet intrigued by my love for her people. Judith was just the first of many Jews and Christian friends who have asked me that question with incredulity. “I have always been attracted to the Jewish people…the Jewish religion.” Elizabeth, another Jewish atheist we met on a cruise, was surprised- even uncomfortable, at my words. Even more so when I added, “You are God’s chosen people.” Why do I feel this way? There are many reasons. Growing up, […]
March 21, 2021
Have we got it wrong: Heaven on Earth? Is heaven a place far away? Only habitable by the dead? Or could it be attainable here? On earth…in this life? Many, perhaps a majority, of us look at our life on earth as something to be endured. Perhaps a cosmic test of some kind. Increasing numbers of us accept reincarnation and its karmic payback. We Christians may not all that different in our thinking. Many of us act as if suffering is what life is…what life should be. We seem determined to wrest misery out of the jaws of joy. Overstatement? […]
March 14, 2021
Fasting: Why do it? We are body, spirit, and soul, we humans. For many of us, however, any concept of our spirit or soul is either whimsy or irrelevant. In this postchristian culture, we have confidence only in our bodies. Spirit and soul have been eclipsed by the pure physicality of our material forms. To some of the most physical of us, the athletes, fasting became a way of life in the late nineties and spread. Over time, it has caught on. The health benefits of fasting from all food for eight, sixteen hours, or two to three days comprise […]
March 7, 2021
The institutionalization of Denial: Legacy of the Social Sciences You know them when you meet them. Or read them. Or have the privilege to study under them. Those rare people gifted with the courage to perceive their limitations; even trumpet their errors. Edwin H Freidman was such a man. Although you may be tempted to read politics into this piece, do not do so. For there is wisdom contained here, if it is reduced to politics, it disappears. Edwin Friedman was an ordained Rabbi, psychoanalyst and family therapist, and a leadership consultant in Washington, DC. He founded the Bethesda Jewish […]
February 28, 2021
Shadow on age, patience and death. “The old boy’s not what he used to be.” Looking at the tall, thin, older, stranger watching our sidewalk trio: Seymour in front, pulling as hard as possible, me, and Shadow plodding at the end of his leash, I replied, “Neither am I.” Each day, the three of us walk through our closely packed community, and down to the sidewalk along route 1 in our still new residence of Oceano, California. At least twice each week, someone comments about Shadow’s age. Like the neighbor who has finally stopped asking, “How old is that dog […]
February 21, 2021
Cain and Abel: It’s all about mediocrity Monday’s reading for the Christian liturgy is a Genesis passage most Jews and Christians recall with ease. Abel’s dead, the Lord comes looking for him and asks Cain where Abel is. Cain’s reply? “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Remember the song, he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother? Even back in the days when I thought the Bible and religion pure fallacy, I loved that song. And sang it at the top of my lungs. A vivid demonstration, I think, of the law written in each of our hearts. Even-perhaps especially-when we deny its […]
February 14, 2021
Football as metaphor for life, faith and happiness Back in another career, my fourth, I ‘met’ Brady. Everything was brand new: The marriage, the career, the faith and football. It was January, 2002. My still new husband insisted I watch the Playoffs between his beloved team, the New England Patriots and Oakland. We were living in Connecticut, cold, snowy Connecticut. I’d decided to leave my career in academic medicine where I’d built a national reputation and join my husband in an online business about which I knew nothing. About sales. Or marketing. Or excel spreadsheets. John knew I didn’t like […]
February 7, 2021
Listen to the higher voice: make yourself an Ark The Bishop’s encapsulated advice to the Cadets at the US Naval Academy in his address Called Into The Depths? Listen to the higher voice. Build an ark. Accept your mission. Find the place where Jesus sleeps. Bishop Robert Barron’s brilliant address to the Navy Cadets serves both as metaphor and method for the upcoming forty days known as the Great Fast by our Byzantine Catholic friends. In case you are not familiar with the auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, here are a few facts about this unusually gifted […]
January 24, 2021
A man for our times: Saul of Tarsus Tomorrow, the Christian Church celebrates the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, pictured above in Caravaggio’s exquisite painting. A special day in the life of the Christian Church. A special day for each one of us: believers or not. This day is one imbued with mystery and grace for me: a former hater of Paul, his writings, and the entire Church. The following section is excerpted from the author’s notes of my latest novel about the early life of St. Paul: Throughout the writing of this book, my decision to imagine the […]
October 10, 2013
Eerily reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey, absent Hal, Gravity places two American astronauts alone in the vast, black, void of outer space. I saw the movie last week but keep drifting back to the film and the stunning cinematography which transports the willing viewer to a place of pure silence, isolation; the abyss. With its stark absence of dialogue, and its placement of the man and the woman as the paradox of humanity: fragile and vulnerable yet with a spark of the divine, Gravity manages a strange combination of the very […]
November 19, 2013
Take Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro and Kevin Kline, add a pinch or two of a mediocre screenplay and mix. The result: Two hours of pure entertainment; filled with self deprecating humor by these giants of film facing the consequences of age in the film, Last Vegas. Freeman attempting to accept graciously the anxious ministrations of a concerned son; Kline as he fights a losing battle with his manhood, De Niro, lost in grief at the loss of his wife and Douglas, the sole bachelor of the four-some who accidentally proposes to his 30 year old girl friend. It […]
September 23, 2014
In these days of wars on three fronts, headlines of missiles raining down on Syria, ninety minutes of a story based upon a dedicated group of people with the single, pure and loving goal of rescue, rehabilitate and release of Dolphins and other marine animals was just what we needed yesterday. Dolphin Tale 2 is the sequel to a movie telling the true story of a group of people in Clearwater Florida who rescued a dolphin they named Winter pictured here with the prosthetic device devised to function for the amputated lower part of her body and her tail. The […]
November 12, 2014
Since I like Matthew McConaughey a lot, I knew I would like his new movie, Interstellar a Christopher and Jonathan Nolan film. But three days later, I’m still thinking about the film, for several reasons: The cinematography is stunning. Remember the Nolans’ 2010 film Inception? Interstellar is like that-we work to grasp what is happening. From the very first scene of this movie, I was hooked-the apocalyptic scenario is strangely credible. Lately, Hollywood writers seem more interested; perhaps more open to the actual presence of God: The benevolent ‘They’ living in a five dimensional world may be as close as many 21st century […]