Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; this is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Mother Theresa To love another person is to see the face of God. Victor Hugo On October 14th, I too saw the “Face of God”. There in the face of our new great- granddaughter. I watched her as she looked around. All 6 and a half pounds of her. Wearing a pink hat made by Grandma, she lay resting in the arms of her father. After all it had been quite a journey. Joy and celebration swirling all around her. But that is not the only place I saw the “Face of God”. I saw our Granddaughter’s face earlier as she struggled with labor, d

How can you pray when you are frightened, angry, hurt or grieving? I wish I had a good answer for that. Today when my heart is clouded and I feel completely ineffective I am praying through the love of my friends. They are holding me up to God when I don’t have the strength to do so. I try to remember that my efforts and my virtues do not change the amount of love in the world, the amount of strength available for hard times. God is with us, bidden or unbidden, and God’s strength is available for the asking. Sometimes I’m too proud to ask my friends to carry me when I’m weak, and sometimes my pride says that my problems are too insignificant to ask for help. But what I’m really saying is I

My wife and I recently took our kids to an event at our local wildlife refuge. It was a pretty small affair, but offered us a lot in terms of education. We learned about birds, snakes, and a variety of other critters. One of those from the “variety” category was a European rabbit. Full disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about rabbits, so everything you are about to read is based on the assumption that the person with the rabbit knew what she was talking about. When we pet the rabbit, we noticed that it was shedding like crazy. I asked the woman if this was common among rabbits, and her response has haunted me ever since. She said, “They shed based on season, but this one’s shedding at the

Celtic Christians mark this time of year at the midway point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. Ancient Celts called this season Samhain (pronounced sow-en). It coincides with the Christian celebrations of All Saints Day on November 1 and All Souls Day on November 2. These are days we re-member all who have died, and yes it is a celebratory event! Though we live in a culture which tends to emphasize youth and neglect the ancestors, perhaps there will be a re-emergence of appreciation for the departed sparked by companies like Ancestry.com. This is the Celtic Christian New Year and with it comes the slowing down of the last half of autumn and winter. In the language of Christ

I learned something about myself this week. We have three big old maple trees in our yard and, well, it’s fall. By the end of the windy week we’ve had, our green lawn was barely visible beneath the blanket of red and yellow leaves. And, so, even though I was really enjoying the new color palette and the crunch as we walked through the yard, it was time to do something about all the leaves. I headed outside with my daughter in tow, each of us with a rake in hand. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t expect to learn that I love raking leaves. As I started making piles of leaves all over the yard, my daughter ran around with her rake between her legs like a witch’s broom. By the time