We have all spent time doing it: Looking for heroes in all the wrong places. Our movies and music reflect and sometimes magnify that desire to find someone who is an authentic hero. While watching Wonder Woman, we love imagining a woman with extraordinary physical and mental abilities. Maybe even a little identification with her. […]
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The pressure of reality: What a wonderfully powerful phrase. And connecting the words of poet Wallace Stevens to the ‘tyranny’ of the omniscient, ubiquitous 24/7 news is brilliant. Let me explain. Recently, a good friend asked my opinion on the ongoing debates about Obamacare, the performance of the President with a couple of specific questions
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“Could you do that?” The implication of the question: “Could you sacrifice yourself? My friend and I were watching the recently released film, Megan Leavey and were asking one another if we could lead a platoon of marines as they crossed an IED riddled land which looks like the face of the moon: Afghanistan. The true story
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Medjugorje, A Perplexing Pilgrimage. In 2003, I traveled alone across the world to Medjugorje, a perplexing pilgrimage. But first some background. The apparitions of the Virgin Mary to six young visionaries beginning in 1981 ignited a storm of controversy and persecution. Thirty-six years later, questions remain unanswered to the satisfaction of skeptical Catholic and secular
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Last December, the movie Silence opened to a conflicting maze of reviews. Some greatly praising the film and others exceedingly critical of the tale of the ‘apostate Jesuit priests’ of seventeenth century Japan. I watched it three days ago and am still pondering its meaning. The film is gripping and relentless. Both intensity and portent
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In the physics of spirituality, it’s all paradox. St. Thomas Aquinas put down his pen, never to pick it up again, after four-thousand pages of his great work the Summa Theologica. He had reached question 99 when he quit. And when asked why, replied, “…‘All that I have written seems like so much straw compared to
On this Feast of the Good Shepherd, I think of a hike I took up in the mountains behind our home here in the high desert about two years ago. The lone lamb suddenly appeared in the brush and then raced into the high desert running as fast as she could, both dogs close to
Before boarding the United States Army Transport ship Dorchester back in January, 1943, a Dutch Reformed Chaplain named Poling asked his father to pray for him, “Not for my safe return, that wouldn’t be fair. Just pray that I shall do my duty…never be a coward…and have the strength, courage and understanding of men. Just
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The Young Messiah takes a year out of the life of Christ- a seven year old Jesus bar Joseph. If you have read Anne Rice’s Jesus Christ the Lord – Out of Egypt, you’ll soon recognize this intriguing, beautifully scripted, filmed and acted story of the God-child. If not, you may choose to seek out this
“The prodigal son gospel reading is the perfect, ‘leticia’ for the fourth Sunday in Lent…leticia means joyous…we are happy because we’re now halfway through Lent,” the new Pastor, Fr. Jose Alberto Vasquez at St. Patrick’s Church in Arroyo Grande, California, claimed. Then he exclaimed that reconciliation is not about sin but forgiveness. Several times, he