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Prayers for the people who bump into things
… know which of the many oaks on campus was the “great” one, it was fairly easy to pick out the tree with the black boom box at its roots and a bright orange industrial extension cord snaking … into the window of the women’s bathroom. My classmates appeared, all of us walking toward the tree like freshmen walking into the gym at the homecoming dance, looking for a familiar face and …
From the streets of Philadelphia
… winning urban gardener and offered some wonderful home-made apple pie made with apples from a tree in her back yard.) I was reminded that she works just a short distance in this section of …
Monks sue for the right to build, sell caskets
… The abbey does not receive funding from the Roman Catholic Church, and relies on selling trees from a forest on the property for income, plus items the monks craft by hand. The abbey has …
The pope and La Curandera, the Healer
… water, we shall turn to gaze upon the sun itself. . . Certainly the essential function of a tree is to produce fruit in season; still the foliage that its branches also bear serves to adorn …
Being Catholic means finding God at every turn
… bugs, tadpoles, frogs and mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, brooks to wade in ... bats, bees, butterflies ... sand, snakes ... and any child …
Leaning on God
… Some people lean against fence posts when their bodies ache from toil. Some people lean on oak trees, seeking cool shade on hot, humid days. Some people lean on crutches Brozova/dreamstime.com … a refuge when times are tough. Thank you for offering me strength, for being the oak tree of comfort; thank you for being the sturdy support when the limbs of my life are weak. …
BP's tree fell on my lawn
A friend posted this link on Facebook to Roger Ebert's column in the Chicago Sun Times July 25. Ebert, a cancer-survivor who can no longer speak, articulates his views in print through powerful prose. One of the best and most thoughtful film critics since Andre' Bazin and Pauline Kael, he applies his powers of observation, and critical skills -- indeed his soul -- to the BP oil disaster in the…
Burma: Light and hope amid brutality
… in one of the world’s deadliest storms. Tiny Aung survived by clinging to branches high in a tree. Now she lives in that whitewashed building, an orphanage that quickly doubled the number of …
Our incessant motoring is a failure to face reality
… in Vermilion Bay. The highway wound its way through marshes bordered by moss-draped live oak trees. At the water’s edge we walked along the narrow beach picking up oyster shells and … only death I cannot bear!” Indeed, to see your place -- the woven, quilted mosaic of weather, trees, vegetation, landforms, rainfall, birds, animals and wildflowers particular to that one …
Timeless messages and the new media
… predictably intensify after the release of any new technology that threatens to save more trees. Will everything eventually be “printed” only on a screen? Can publishers afford to …
Seven days that shook the Vatican
… Faced with such a deluge of news, the obvious temptation is to miss the forest for the trees. Here, I’d like to step back from the details and ponder the question, “What does it all …
Seven days that shook the Vatican
… future. Faced with such a deluge of news, the obvious temptation is to miss the forest for the trees. Here, I’d like to step back from the details and ponder the question, “What does it all …
The Sacrament in the Gulf
… our spiritual cleansing. From the muddy bottom of the Gulf where the rig lies like the fated tree of Eden, a spiritual revelation speaks from behind the headlines to us. Religious leaders …
Fr. Louie's letters from prison
… the ride delightful -- through the high desert, across the fertile citrus groves and avocado trees. We then had a beautiful drive up the Pacific Coast past Ventura and Santa Barbara, seeing …
'My home is being destroyed, and I don't mean my house'
… The state highway wound its way through the marshes bordered by beautiful moss-draped live oak trees. With the car windows down, we heard red-winged blackbirds and many other bird sounds we … death I cannot bear!” I think that to see your place -- the woven quilted mosaic of weather, trees, vegetation, landforms, rainfall, trees, birds, animals and wildflowers particular to that one place that nourishes you and gave …