In recent months, I’ve been retreating periodically from Facebook as it grows steadily more toxic. But I have never before seen the level of toxicity that I have seen this week. I got on this morning, after a two-day (mostly) social media rest, and I shared the video linked below without comment. But then I…
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Mercy In The Age of Facebook
Because the spiritual works of mercy have always been a little tough to pin down, I offer this today: The Spiritual Works of Mercy – in the Age of Facebook Mark Piper 🔶 To Give Counsel to the Doubtful, in person, without a shield of anonymity, with charity and goodwill as your motivation 🔶 To Instruct…
Read MoreIn Which Julianna Finally Succeeds In Hijacking The Eucharist
It was a bad day in choir. The big boys were out until 10 p.m. the night before for baseball, so of course, Nicholas was falling to pieces long before we finished choir warmup. I’ve been waking at 4:30 for several days, so my patience was stretched pretty thin. And Michael? I don’t know what…
Read MoreThe Fasting Isn’t The Most Important Thing
In February of 1995 I crashed over the edge of an emotional cliff when the relationship I was involved in ended without warning. (Actually, there was plenty of warning, I was just too naïve, i.e. clueless, to recognize the signs.) The months leading up to that emotional cliff, I was as far from my faith…
Read MoreAdventures in Liturgy With A Musical Mom
Friday morning, I flew into church at 7:59 a.m. for 8:00 holy day Mass, trailing a widely-spaced gaggle of little ones–the last one wailing. With Christian out of town, I was single parenting, and it was also the last field trip day of the summer, with speech therapy thrown in for good measure. We’d left…
Read MoreKids Who Write Songs, NPM memories, and other QTs
___1___ Let’s start with a story about this boy: Alex loves to rewrite songs. And oh lordy, sometimes it’s hard for an occasional songwriter to listen to it! Last night in the car, he decided to rewrite Rudolph with shades of the Lego movie: “Big Mr. Buz-niss MA-AN, had a bi-ig crane ro-BOT!” “ALEX!” I…
Read MoreWhere I Spent Last Week, And What I Learned From It
I spent last week at a conference for church musicians. I want to blog about it this morning, but so far I have spent ten minutes sitting in front of the computer grasping for what to say. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I can think of lots of things to say, but I can’t find…
Read MoreJulianna Attempts To Hijack the Eucharist
There must be some Murphy’s Law of parenting that says the moment you make a big decision and put it into play, you begin to second guess yourself. The decision to have Julianna repeat first grade is the right one. I’m still certain that she’ll benefit greatly from it, but I’m intimidated by the transition.…
Read MoreIs Faith Vertical or Horizontal?
I want to start today with a question: When you read (or hear) the Ascension scriptures, what stands out to you as the central point? It strikes me that most of the reflections I’ve seen, heard or read on the Ascension focus in on the vertical. It’s about Jesus going to Heaven to prepare a…
Read MoreChild Abuse, Part 2: Personal Defense
A commenter once took issue with a post I wrote about parents’ responsibility to arm their children against the threat of child abuse by teaching children about their dignity as human beings, and in particular the dignity of the human body. This person took issue with the idea that such concepts can provide any protection against predators.…
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Kathleen M. Basi 