It is the evening of July 3rd...I am sitting on my deck watching and listening to my girls laugh and chat as they play pickleball on our backyard court. Airplanes are coming and going from the little city airport nearby, cars are revving their engines far away for the Friday night cruise, someone somewhere is lighting off fireworks, and the neighborhood bald eagle is circling and soaring above with its eye on something down below. It is remarkable to pause and consider the gift of living in a...

"Send forth your spirit, they are created and you renew the face of the earth" ~ Psalm 104:30 Fifty days after Easter, the Church pauses in something like holy astonishment. The disciples had been waiting behind closed doors with uncertain hearts…and then the room filled with wind and fire, and nothing was ever the same again. Pentecost is not just and one and done historical footnote. It is an ongoing event. The same Spirit who rushed into that upper room is rushing still, looking for open...

Note: This is the story of our first miscarriage. Our first loss, although not our first experience with the reality of death. The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord in 2006 is etched into my memory in a way I could never have imagined. It was May 25th, and what should have been a day of joy became one of the great sorrows of our family life. I was 15 weeks pregnant with our sixth baby, due on November 9th. I had always wanted a November baby. Like so many families, we scheduled the...