When the Road Forks: Recalculating Route
With 650 miles of freeway and 22,000 miles of surface streets, Los Angeles County offers an almost unlimited number of roads to travel. I have been known to miss my exit or get on the onramp heading Eastbound when I want to go Westbound. I do not always plug my...
When the Road Forks: Cannonball Moments
One of St. Ignatius’s gifts to us today is his wisdom about discernment. What Ignatius first noticed while lying in bed recovering from a severe war injury was the way God, through the Holy Spirit, guides us, leading us to discern why we feel longing in the first...
Growth in the Spirit: Embracing All My Feelings
I still remember the moments shortly after my Dad died. I was standing in his hospital room and, with uncontrollable tears running down my face, I ripped my glasses off. I almost snapped them in half but caught myself and stormed out of the room into the empty...
Growth in the Spirit: Walking in the Woods
I had just entered the world of ministry and my desire to serve was deep. Because I wasn’t married or with children yet, I remember devoting every minute to the people of God. I treated myself as a missionary, but that decision led to an unhealthy place. Sitting...
Growth in the Spirit: Embracing My Giftedness and My Flaws
The teacher said, “Dip your brush in water and wash the entire surface.” My first watercolor class ever. It was all so new. I craned my neck, raised up in my chair, and squinted to see what the teacher was doing. The first step was easy. I mean, who can’t dip a...
Growth in the Spirit: Woman, Why Are You Weeping?
Creatures have been gifted with different kinds of sight. In addition to seeing blue, green, and red in the color spectrum, birds can also see UV light invisible to humans, giving them another whole range of beauty we can’t perceive. Humans are among other...
Growth in the Spirit: Unfinished
Have you ever seen DaVinci’s work The Adoration of the Magi San Donato in Scopeto? The most fascinating thing about this artwork to me is that it is unfinished. Leonardo DaVinci had thirty months to complete this altarpiece for the Augustinian friars, but before he...
Growth in the Spirit: Carrying Imaginary Squirrels Through My Day
“It’s a little harder for me to hike down because I am carrying a squirrel.” When my sister explained the trouble my daughter was having with this “squirrel” she was carrying, my husband helpfully recommended the squirrel sit on her shoulder so she’d have both...
Growth in the Spirit: Peace
When I was young, my parents had a ritual on my birthday. We’d go out to the garage and my parents would measure how much I had grown in the past year. They would take my mom’s measuring tape which she used for sewing and would mark the wall with my “official”...
Growth in the Spirit: Remaining Faithful
“God has not called me to be successful; He has called me to be faithful.” – Saint Teresa of Calcutta One of the first people I called when I learned I was losing my job was my friend Sally. “You have been so faithful!” she repeated over and over again. “You have...
