Anyone who knows me also know how much I love to bike around the city. I fell in love with city living several years ago and have not looked back. I love hopping on my bike and going to my favorite coffeeshop or brewery to write and to work. I love exploring the different trails and streets and discovering the most efficient routes. I love not usin...

I believe all of life is sacred. Each patch of grass, rocky path, piece of tile, sandy shore, carpet square, clunk of dirt, grocery aisle, country road, hardwood court, kitchen tile, cubicle floor, sidewalk bend, and city street beneath your feet can be holy ground, if you dare to believe it is so, if you dare to see with holy eyes.

That includes ev...

“God has no rivals, and therefore as a child of God, neither do I,” the monk taught. I was on retreat attending a class at Saint Meinrad Archabbey—a Benedictine monastery in southern Indiana—taught by Father Adrian Burke, OSB. “I have no rivals,” he repeated.

He said the statement was one of his mantras. It is a good thing, I think, to adopt monk m...

Now that Lent has long passed, and Easter celebrations have ended, we return to Holy Saturday, the space in which most of our mental, emotional, and spiritual lives unfold. On summer’s doorstep, in the wake of seeing the earth bloom to life, we are reminded of the coming dryness.

It’s in the mystery of Holy Saturday—between the despair of Good Fri...

One of the core concepts that draws me to Christianity and inspires my spiritual walk today is its integration of both fullness and emptiness, a theme that is on full display during the Lenten season. We find fullness in the metaphor of baptism and emptiness in the proverbial wilderness.

As Vatican Council II stated, “the two elements which are esp...

Most movies pull the viewer in through chaos, madness, or emotion. Basic storytelling says that there needs to be an emotional hook—an inciting incident of some sort—to engage a viewer and pull them in. But dramatization or romanticization is not always an accurate depiction of life.

Though life is certainly filled with lots of inciting incidents a...

This time of year, for many, can be an overwhelming confrontation with all that there is to do. The holidays fade away. The decorations come down. We return to the world, carried along by our resolutions or our goals, our dreams for the year, or our need to make up for lost time over the holidays. We are thrown back onto the treadmill. Each day is...