This Year, Will 'Hallow' Be Thy App? the blog post I'd stumbled on asked. Indeed it will, I smiled. It already is. A friend shared Hallow with me during Lent two years back. I downloaded the free version, "Hallow Lite" right away. I liked what Hallow offered: meditations, prayers and chant at the ready whenever … Continue reading Why “Hallow” Is my App (Plus Two More for Searching Minds and Growing Souls)
Two days before Christmas in 1949, Thomas Merton returned to his room in Kentucky's Abbey of Gethsemani and opened his mail. He had received a postcard bearing Fra Angelico's golden rendering of the Annunciation, the moment when the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary with the invitation to bring God into the world through her own … Continue reading Contemplating Christmas Cards with Thomas Merton
There's more than enough anxiety to go around these days and plenty of places to place the blame. Plenty of sin, plenty of harm, plenty of reasons to disengage. Or just give up. A little thing just about tipped me this morning because it arrived after a series of sadnesses and frustrations big and small. … Continue reading Keep Your Eyes on the Prize: How Music Helps Us Rise when All We Want to Do Is Quit
"In all my works I take the part of trees against all their enemies," J.R.R. Tolkien wrote late in his life. The Master of Middle Earth even referred on one occasion to The Lord of the Rings as "my own inner tree." With springtime erupting everywhere, I've been reading Humphrey Carpenter's J.R.R. Tolkein: A Biography. … Continue reading Tolkien, Trees and a Naturalist’s Notebook: Noticing Nature as Mordor Looms
When I told a family member I wasn't doing much on New Year's Eve this time around, he responded, "Yeah, I'm noticing that in a lot of people. It's an angry time. Lots of people don't feel like celebrating." I hadn't connected my less-than-celebratory plans with a national mood, but he made me think twice … Continue reading Three Words to Guide a New Year of Hope
The 500th anniversary of the Reformation has concluded. The year provided many occasions for dialog, discussion and defense of each side of the Catholic-Protestant divide. I've been an invested observer, having been received into the Catholic Church over a decade ago after a lifetime as an active Evangelical, but I'm unqualified to spar with theologians … Continue reading Luther and the Little Way: A Gradual Gift from a Catholic Conversion
Camping and reading intertwine beautifully as pleasures. Many a backpack trip's rocks and ridges meet in my memory with the book I chose to carry. In my twenties, Middle Earth and Narnia leapt alive on hikes with my husband in the mountains west of Denver. Immersed in Tolkien or Lewis, it seemed Legolas or Tumnus … Continue reading The Lab Girl and the Contemplative: A Campsite Convergence
