As I began climbing the mountain at the Franciscan sanctuary of La Verna in central Italy, the great Franciscan theologian Bonaventure’s...

My 19-month-old pointed toward his shelf of Christmas books, "Boke?" He wanted to pick another book for me to read to him before bed,...

The first time I took my Southern wife to my childhood home in Indiana for the holidays, she told me she felt like she was stepping into...

I learned to listen at the Double Door Inn. Many times I'd step into that ramshackle music venue in Charlotte, North Carolina, carrying...

Trappist monk Thomas Merton once wrote a beautiful essay titled “Rain and the Rhinoceros” where he meditated upon a rainstorm from his...

A candle burned between us in a small, dim conference room. “Have you ever been to the Double Door Inn?” my mentor asked. I drew a blank....

As I gave our son his nightly bath, my wife, Lauren (who I call La La), showered in the other bathroom. It dawned on me: Is this the only...