This week I will travel to my mother’s memorial service. My mother had been looking forward to dying for the past couple years, and on her 93rd birthday she had a stroke that began her last week of life. Now her family and friends and caretakers will assemble to celebrate her life which was long and full and good. Sometimes it was full of heartbreak and frustration and fear. Sometimes it was full of hope and overflowing with satisfaction. She never stopped striving, leaning f

My very precocious little granddaughter was perched on the arm of my chair when I thought to ask her what she knows about God. She thought about it a minute and said: “I think His favorite color is yellow, a very, very bright beautiful yellow.” It took a minute for me to think that one through. Then I was curious. “What else do you know about God?” “I know He loves me more than anyone, even Mommy and Daddy.” Fast forward to a telephone conversation this week. I was frustrated

One of the first things I learned about the Celts was that they resisted writing things down for a very long time. This makes it hard to know as much as we would like about these ancient spiritual communities, but it also offers us some much-needed wisdom. Even now I feel anxious about the blogs I’ve written recently. This isn’t because I’m afraid of people disagreeing with me or thinking less of me--though those aren’t pleasant thoughts. It is because everything I’m writing

This picture is of our friend Annie and a Irish woman we met on our walk out to the shoreline of Dublin. Her name is Mary and she has been married for over 50 years. Her husband was out playing golf on this morning which was part of his weekly routine. If you have listened to as many peoples’ stories as I have been privileged to do, you can almost tell the place of origin within the teller’s soul. Sometimes folks “just have to tell you something”, they simply cannot contain i