“Been cowboyin’ lately?” The question came from a young farmer named Josh. He and an older man were checking out a 1949 Ford pickup for sale across the street from the local farm store...

My dad used to say, “Never trust a man who drives a clean truck.” He was referring to pickups that hauled bales of hay as opposed to bags of groceries. He was never impressed by jacked-up rigs with chrome bumpers. This son of his followed his lead...

Someone once said, “Fishing requires patience. Fishing with children requires a saint.” I witnessed the truth of this saying when my youngest nephew brought his two oldest children, ages 7 and 5, to fish at my pond...

My dentist retired a couple of months ago. His replacement is a young man with dark skin, long hair and a red bandanna tied at the nape of his neck...

We never met in person, but I remember the first time I heard about you. It was back in 1981, a month after I was ordained a priest.

The gospel reading does not refer to a domestic scenes with children, flowers in a field or bread rising in an oven. Nor does it revel in pastures with sheep or wheat ripe for harvest. Rather, we hear an account of the Passion of Christ and, like sailors on an aircraft carrier, we can’t ignore the deafening rumble of war...

Occasionally, I am asked to join in on meetings with young men who are discerning a call to the priesthood. I admire these young fellows very much. In a society that exalts status, achievement and self-satisfaction, they dare to scan the horizon and seek the road to virtues like fortitude, resilience and self-sacrifice...

Naming an animal is a way of claiming that creature as your own. It is also a way of indicating to others, the quality and nature of your relationship with that creature. Sometimes, this can get a bit touchy, as I discovered when I took my horse to a veterinarian for blood tests a couple weeks ago...

Time and again I’ve called to hospital rooms, not to attend to a body, but to commend a soul into the hands of God and have experienced a mysterious Presence...

A group of inmates form a jagged line in the exercise yard. “Strip!” shouts the guard. They remove their garb. I avert my eyes...