Enduring Trials and Reminding Ourselves What Will Endure

I long ago gave up believing in coincidences. I believe that everything that happens in our lives, happens for a reason. Over the weekend, something ugly happened. An adult took it upon himself to insult our eldest son publicly, Our son has become deeply involved, publicly involved in writing,speaking, going door to door and otherwise peacefully  and respectfully organizing opposition to our local school board, which is pursuing policies that are serving to destabilize our public schools. Our son wants to enter the world of public policy and politics .After reading cruel remarks on a facebook page and in private emails to my husband and me, Greg told our son this is the price that sometimes must be paid for working for the common good. Our friends rallied around us with sweet phone calls, and homemade chocolate cake and wise admonitions to steer clear of the internet, where this whole effort at public humiliation was unfolding all weekend..

On Christmas Eve, Thanking God for God

I have had a horrible headache for about 8 hours now. I do not want to think this is a consequence of an online bully, a person I never have met who lives in my town, and who harped, name called, stomped and shouted about a piece of my writing for about seven hours on facebook yesterday. I proceeded with my day, a beautiful day with my husband, I might add. And the vitriol kept spewing in a facebook comment box.  I want to think I just need water and caffeine. 

When Charity Trumps My Morning Coffee

I'm still tired from my late-night socializing, but now I'm also full of joy. Two friends and I just returned from a local nursing home, where for an hour we sang with a handful of residents and played trivia games.

One attraction of the ecclesiastical movement Communion and Liberation is its emphasis on living the reality of Christ - not the Christ in our heads, not the Christ of our abstraction, of our preconception, not the Christ of ritual, but the Christ as a here and now present reality.

In the Nursing Home and Everywhere Else: To Be Called By Name

This afternoon I drove in the rain to the nursing home where our School of Community does monthly charity work. Two friends joined me. As we gathered in the recreation room to begin games of trivia with a half-dozen residents in wheelchairs, we noticed someone missing. Where was that sweet 90-something widow?

I panicked: perhaps Elisabetta had died since our last visit. It was impossible to imagine such a thing: she had vivid blue eyes, her wry humor and her adorable English accented from her native Italy. "Elisabetta" had grown up in the Province of Udine near Austria and Slovenia. She immigrated to the United States,  raised four children with her husband and worked as a seamstress. Where was she?