"It is difficult to sum up the year now ending in a few words. So much has happened during this year and yet I cannot see what its real message is for me, or its real achievement....Hardship and hunger and violence have intensified and are now more shattering than anyone could have imagined." With left … Continue reading Nazi Prison New Year: The Integrity of Alfred Delp
Sometimes it takes a true fan to open a songwriter's work for you, to reveal poetic treasures obscured by the well-worn hooks that propelled the musician to fame. Just about everybody liked The Boss back in the day, at least in the surfacey way that connects us with artists whose hits are part of the … Continue reading From Nebraska to OHIO: This Indie Springsteen Tribute Charts a Heartfelt Map
Lent can make you appreciate the length of a lived-out 40: Christ's 40 day fast, Noah's 40 day float trip, Israel's 40 days of wilderness wandering. Forty days takes discipline and desire, and it helps to know going in that there will come a point where you might just want to quit. I've found it … Continue reading Brother’s Keeper: A Playlist for Growing a Merciful Heart
He died ten years ago at the age of 68. He didn't achieve fame at the level of some who admired him, among them James Taylor, Carole King, Lindsey Buckingham, Nanci Griffith and Roseanne Cash. Nevertheless, he remains a highly-acclaimed hero of Americana music, one of the original singer/songwriters to blend folk music with rock. … Continue reading John Stewart, Mother Teresa and the Power of Song in the Field Where the Angels Dance
The past few weeks have been gut-wrenching for serious Catholics who must face the reality that the gates of hell had forged deeper inroads into the heart of the Church than our worst fears would have imagined. We wonder how much outrage we can take. How many unsatisfying platitudes and knee-jerk one-liners we must endure in … Continue reading Scandal and Self-Definition: The Choice Between Fight or Flight
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
Something's been missing in my music-listening life since the digital age changed the way I go about accessing new songs. Sure, Spotify, iTunes and Amazon offer avenues of listeners-like-you-also-bought discovery, but there was still a certain unnamed lack. Refusing to moan about how much better things were back in the day when we all tuned in … Continue reading Music, Meaning and a Piece of Maria: How the Song & Story Podcast Can Fill the Music Void You Didn’t Know You Had
