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
The other day I emailed a letter to each of my senators. The occasion: the recent vacancy on our nation's highest court. I wished to weigh in as a woman who does not identify with pressure groups claiming to speak for all women, and I wanted to do it before the Senate began pondering the person … Continue reading The Extremists We Need Right Now
She never shied away from the contentions of political engagement. She practiced what she preached, responding to the wretchedness of Depression-era poverty by co-founding a movement that established a newspaper, communal farms and "Houses of Hospitality" for the homeless. She had an abortion as a young woman but would ultimately regret it and defend human … Continue reading Toward Authenticity in the Cultural Moment: Three Lessons from Dorothy Day
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
