On the way to Mass at the Mission of Mt. Carmel, I am greeted by the face of Our Lady of Guadalupe peering from a large mural painted on a gas station wall. Poised at an angle above the gas pumps and a delivery truck, her blue veil and gentle smile warms the morning air. As always happens when I behold this image of Our Lady, the words she spoke to St. Juan Diego echo in my soul, “I am your mother. Am I not your mother?”
The road to El Paso pushes through an arid region of tall yucca and thin grass. South of Carlsbad, a mountain range sawtooths the horizon like the snarl of an angry dog. The vast expanse is brown and brittle, a land of cactus and serpents. I arrive at the migrant shelter after dark...
It is my road trip home after a summer in a Midwest spiritual boot camp for diocesan seminarians. For 10 weeks, I have studied, pondered, and conversed with others about the spiritual life of a diocesan priest. We focused on the spousal elements of celibacy, the joys and demands of spiritual fatherhood, and the need to be a contemplative in action. The content was rich and life-giving, but I still feel there is something missing...
When I was young, wearing shoes in summer was a luxury reserved for Sunday Mass. No shoes? No problem! Except when my father needed help sorting calves in the stables. “It’s good fertilizer,” he’d say. “It’ll make you grow." Now that I’m retired, I’ve reverted to going shoeless much of the time. Not only that, my house is part of a barn...
The young man who pulled up to my house needed a place to bunk. He wore long hair, sunglasses and a tank top. His beat-up car was crammed—dashboard to hatchback— with clothes, boots, sleeping bags, coolers and a Coleman stove...
I pound the last tent stake into the hardpan and toss the rock-turned-hammer down the hill. I pull a knife and a jar of peanut butter from my bag. Digging into the golden spread, I realize that I’m the one being carved—cut and chiseled—by the beauty that surrounds me...
From a distance, the cloth patch on my shirt—vaunting the Lone Star of Texas—looks like a badge. The two-way radio on my belt commands respect. Mounted on my steed with a Stetson pulled low over my brow, I’m tempted to introduce myself as Fr. Walker, Texas Ranger...
It was a day of packing straw in a barn. On the fifth load, one of the bales broke and sprayed slabs of straw across the mow. My great-nephew, Patrick, kicked the hunks on the backs of Holsteins in the stable below...
I am sitting on the shore of the Sea of Galilee a month after being ordained a transitional deacon. Beneath my bare feet, under the surface of the blue-green water, lie black stones an arm’s throw from the house of the Rock’s mother-in-law. The grey hills surround the lake like the sides of a baptismal font in the hazy noonday heat...
My four-legged companion, Guapo, gazes at the passing countryside with a contented expression. I, on the other hand, am caught up in complicated rumination...
It’s 7 AM. The tent is folded, the cooler packed, and I’m gassing up at a filling station in Doe Run, Missouri. Yesterday, Guapo and I logged over seven hundred miles on our Midwestern road trip...
Our knees make a thud as they hit the carpet floor, fingers sliding on the imaginary strings of our air guitars. Our young voices strain to the Boston classic: “All I want is to have my peace of mii-iiind!!” When the song ends, I shoot a glance at my best buddy in the third grade, Zeke. “I wonder what that means..."
It’s after midnight and near freezing. My buddy, Carter, and I stand still and peer into the canyon. It has sharp shadows. The moon lights up the flat surfaces of rock. The coyotes start yelping and there is a gentle rumble behind us...
When a teenager attends a religious retreat, a moment arrives when he or she is handed a folder stuffed with letters. These letters of support, written by parents, teachers, coaches and friends, express the love and admiration we often fail to articulate in day-to-day life...
Gian Sardar wrote a book about her father who grew up in Kurdistan. “I saw my father as a boy in fields of blood-red poppies,” she said in an interview. “I imagined the mud huts he lived in, the sound of the call to prayer early in the morning and the howl of the planes that brought destruction to the land..."
The courtroom was packed. Lawyers, reporters, county commissioners and law enforcement officials crammed into the benches next to ex-offenders, recovering addicts, clergy...
I rub my right hand on the sandpaper surface of the rock, then tap twice on a ledge that protrudes from the center. I turn to James, my guide, “I think we found our altar"...
Down we descend, fifty-pound packs shifting with each step. The canyon landscape is as desolate as it is magnificent: the grey desert escarpment giving way to maroon cliffs carved like red-velvet cake—a welcome serving to my starving soul...
In high school, books by John Steinbeck were assigned reading: The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, The Pearl and The Red Pony. I loved those books. Now that I’m getting ready to retire, it’s time to read Travels with Charley: In Search of America...
