Love Breaks Through

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Love Breaks Through

Something happens when you deprive yourself of comforts voluntarily, whether in fasting, abstaining, or finding yourself in an old monastery in the middle of the English countryside. With only two meals a day, a chill I couldn’t shake, lack of internet and cell service, something happened in that space which is usually cloaked by comfort. Call it magic or mystery but the words of the liturgy I heard several times a day became part of my cadence, placing me in some sort of liminal space; a space between this world and the one we cannot usually see.

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The Moment of Inhale

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The Moment of Inhale

Caravaggio’s art is incomplete without our gaze, the painted narrative waits for our eyes to unravel it. He needs us, the viewers, for the mystery in his paintings to be revealed. As his hues and figures set the stage for a narrative already in motion, Caravaggio allows the viewer to interrupt a story in progress, beholding the precise moment that the narrative curves from ordinary to astonishing."

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Jagged Prayers

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Jagged Prayers

“You once said that if you didn’t write, you’d wash your hands all day. This is true for me too, though it manifests itself in other ways: list-making, organizing, cleaning until I see disorder in every inch of my house. Writing becomes a compulsive behavior too, a way of finding clarity, of moving through the pain into something beautiful.”

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My Virtual Camino: Celebrating the Feast of St. James in My Own Backyard

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My Virtual Camino: Celebrating the Feast of St. James in My Own Backyard

When I started attending St. James Cathedral in Seattle 11 years ago, I said to a friend, “St. James? Which one is he again?”  

“He’s one of the Sons of Thunder!” she said, a little too loudly with a sort of spirited superhero look on her face.

I nearly spit out the double tall vanilla latte I was sipping, doubling over with laughter. “Sons of Thunder?” I asked.

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