Essays

The Children’s Mass

            There were a lot of babies and children at Mass.  Their sounds filled the air.  There was crying, laughing, burbling, shouting, loud whispering and the pitter-patter of little feet running to the bathroom or escaping the pew and running from their...

Mainstreaming Raw Dog

(Mom and Dad, if you read this, I forbid you from Googling that phrase! Trust me, you don't want to know.)             My husband has a whole pre-workout routine that involves taking his pre-workout drink,...

My One Temptation to Protestantism

            My one temptation to Protestantism is their lack of the sacrament of Confession (also called Penance).  I am only tempted thusly when I am particularly ashamed by something I have to...

In Addition to Itching, Broadleaf Plantain Balm Also Helps Relieve My Uselessness as a Wife and Mother

            I put the book down that I had been reading aloud about a pioneer woman who had saved her dying child.  My son was studying pioneer times and we were reading a historical novel about a...
The Children’s Mass

The Children’s Mass

            There were a lot of babies and children at Mass.  Their sounds filled the air.  There was crying,...

Memento Mori

Memento Mori

            “She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life. “ – the Misfit from “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor In Flanner O’Connor’s...

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Jesus the Master Electrician

Jesus the Master Electrician

            Dr. Tim Gray of the Augustine Institute referred to the Ascension of Our Lord as “completing the circuit.”  I thought it an excellent metaphor and it set me to thinking it through...

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A Cold, Dead Heart and a Cold-Blooded Icon

A Cold, Dead Heart and a Cold-Blooded Icon

I am not an emotional person.  In fact, I think I am best described as having a cold, dead heart.  A heart of stone would also be apt.  I have always been this way.  I can’t remember a time when it was not difficult for me to...

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Trying to Turn and Become Like Children

Trying to Turn and Become Like Children

Part 1: Forgiveness   I stopped making dinner and followed the sounds of screaming into the living room where I came upon yet another knock-down drag-out fight between my two youngest who had, apparently, engaged prison rules.  There was some question...

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