At a new job I took on years ago, everyone I met in my first days mentioned how the general manager of the organization was a genius. They spoke of him in awed tones.
In the early days of civil rights legislation taking hold in the American South, an African-American woman, Norah Jones, boarded a crowded bus, paid her fare, and found that the only free seat was next to a well-dressed white woman about her own age.
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it is often mothers in need who are driven to be inventive for the sake of their children.
My father told me the story about his being an immigrant teenager desperately looking for work on the East Coast with his two brothers.
I love being with people when they visit Lake Michigan for the first time. “You can’t see across!” they sometimes exclaim. Or they say, “It’s like the ocean!” as they marvel at crashing waves and swathes of sand.
There must be something wonderfully compelling about roller coasters. Many people pay lots of money to spend hours in long lines just to ride for a minute and a half. Perhaps what is so attractive is the incongruous juxtaposition of terror and security.
After my marriage ended, I hopped in a car and drove from Chicago, where I had lived most of my life, to Seattle, where my sister lives. I desperately needed to get away from everything for a while, and I had never taken a road trip before.
It was a true joy to baptize my niece Gina’s two daughters with the beautiful names of Grace and Faith. I was privileged to be her godfather before I was ordained. When she was expecting her third child, she told me wanted me to baptize him with the name Dominic
A painting by the early 19th-century German artist Caspar Friedrich is named The Monk and the Sea. It’s a huge canvas, about four feet high by five feet wide. The picture is almost entirely a stormy sky.
As the long days of summer stretch out before us, do yourself a favor and spend time on a beach if at all possible—a quiet beach, a beach made for long walks and deep thoughts.