Yo-Yo Ma played Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor at Thursday’s interfaith prayer and healing service in Boston, where the President and First Lady were in attendance after the tragedy of this week’s Boston Marathon. In an interview [...]

Every year the president of a large, nationwide trucking company makes a visit to every affiliate in cities across America. It’s always a couple weeks before Christmas. One of the men who works in the warehouse told me.  He’s always [...]

I’m struck this morning by the prescience of yesterday’s poem, coming as it did (without my knowledge at the time of posting it) in the wake of the tragedy that struck  late Thursday night at a movie theater in Aurora, [...]

I’m learning more about the nature of grief as I make my way through Hilary Spurling’s fascinating biography of Pearl Buck.  Pearl’s only child, Carol, was born with a rare, degenerative condition that left her mentally disabled for the rest [...]

What few of her parishioners know, or are only now beginning to discover, is that on one Sunday morning eight years ago Rev. Dr. Amy Richter of St. Anne’s Parish in Annapolis, Maryland took second in the Wisconsin State Fair’s [...]

He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Then he withdrew [...]

My husband warned me not to bring this issue up, because it’s one of those topics that makes people squirm and in some cases scream at each other.  But, I was often one of those kids growing up who would [...]

My great uncle passed away two days ago at the age of 89.  Uncle Sandy was someone who spent a lot of his time investing in the next generation.  He had a heart for teaching younger people about the importance [...]

I promised you a Christmas story.  This one is a Christmas story in several unique ways.  It’s a story about God’s grace not as a distant ideal but as an embodied, tangible, very personal encounter. And it’s a story about [...]

Today is the 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Probably the closest thing for my generation to that surprise attack by Japanese planes on Pearl Harbor in the year 1941 is 9/11.  On Saturday evening a friend and I visited the [...]