Living Well

  • Re

    Re

    There is a lightness in my heart today and it’s fragile and warm and cool at the same time. It is a physical feeling in my chest that I feel when the Holy Spirit is present and communicating, a gift of a feeling that I’ve had maybe a dozen times in my life, maybe less…

  • Cultivate

    Cultivate

    I’ve participated in the #oneword365 project for a couple of years now. It’s a pretty simple exercise; you prayerfully pick a word that might help define the year, and then allow it to lead you into new growth in the year ahead. It works. In 2017, I was continually reminded that if things weren’t as…

  • Wrong

    Wrong

    There was something wrong with me but I didn’t know what it was. I was ten years old and sitting on my twin bed, trying to figure it out. For days, I had been burping far more than a tiny ten-year old should, and the smell that came out of my sixty-pound self was…foul. There’s…

  • Keeper

    Keeper

    As I settled into my seat at the annual gratitude mass for a large area charity, I shook my head in wonder. There were hundreds of people at the mass, and it had taken us quite a while to sit, there were so many people to hug. We’ve been a part of this place since…

  • Direction

    Direction

    There’s an inside track at a local university and when the weather turns cold or slippery, I go there to run. It’s a boring, yet peaceful eighth mile loop and I go round and round it until my time is done, listening to my music and never worrying about traffic or which direction to turn.…

  • Found

    Found

    Our son, Brian, lost his cell phone somewhere between here and Western Massachusetts, over two hours away, and we got a text from his friend Alex’s phone asking for our help. After some technological finagling courtesy of my husband, and some help from a satellite in the sky, we were able to ascertain the phone’s…

  • One

    One

    I had what really looked like a breakthrough on the writing front. A Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of a house I really respect wrote me personally, said he thought I had a lot to say and could help a lot of people. I was beside myself, of course, fully believing my dream of book publishing was about to…

  • Provision

    Provision

    I pray, like, a lot. Maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing or my anxious nature, but basically I am literally living out that impossible sounding admonition from scripture to “pray continually.” (1Thessalonians 5:17) When I wake up, I get on my knees just for a second or two to give the day to God. I do…

  • House

    House

    I am dreaming of a new house. I had a literal dream a couple of months ago, and in it I was so peaceful and happy that it’s now the place I go to in my mind when my mind needs a place to go. The house is the exact floor plan of a home…

  • People

    People

    It was a few minutes before the ten o’clock mass, and still no sign of the celebrant. He was a fill-in from a local Catholic college, someone we had met before and really liked, so we were looking forward to our time together in worship. But as the minutes ticked past ten, there was a…