Tales From the Trenches

This is his name: 9WT5-C32D-FHQR. Maybe, if I had not been so full of myself, I would have asked his actual name. Now all I have is his Census ID. Maybe if I had not been so opinionated about our political and cultural crisis, ala Covid-19, I could have been gentle, kind, and gracious. He …READ MORE

I have been reading a book about a young man who faces a crisis of faith, and St. Francis helps him navigate his way through a dark night of the soul. It’s been inspiring and convicting all at once. Spending time looking at St. Francis’s life has made me consider in a new way the …READ MORE

As a mother, I sometimes feel like a failure if I do not have all the answers, whether it is a homework question or what to do when one of my autistic sons is having a meltdown. My maternal instincts are supposed to kick in, and I am supposed to be able to fix things …READ MORE

It was the summer after my sophomore year of college. I had had something close to a nervous breakdown the months before, and so that summer I decided to go on a retreat. My generous mother gifted me with a plane ticket to France so I could go on retreat at Taizé, a non-denominational religious …READ MORE

When my children were still young, we lived just a block away from a river. Once I had a child old enough to watch the “littles,” I loved to go on walks from bridge to bridge and back again. I was thinking about those walks last week and remembered the time I met up with …READ MORE

I was reading a children’s book to my kids when one of the characters all of a sudden dropped some serious wisdom. He said that moments of imperfection can often cause us to doubt our own abilities. Next thing you know, you’re seeing the world through the lens of everything that isn’t going well, and …READ MORE