I’ve read a good bit of Wendell Berry’s writing in the past, but most of my focus was on his essays. The Unsettling of America, which I think I could still find blindfolded in the Jones Creek Library in Baton Rouge, formed the way I think about culture and the land. On the other hand, […]

I came across this passage in one of Dorothy Day’s monthly columns for the Catholic Worker paper the other day, written when she was staying with her daughter before the birth of her third grandchild: “It has been a month of ‘ice, rains, snow and stormy winds,’ and every morning after the routine of fires, […]

This happened at our dinner table this week. The twelve-year-old wandered off. (Usually not a cause for concern – usually she would be in search of more water, or a condiment, or the bathroom.) After a few minutes I said, “Where’s Samantha?” Not in the kitchen. No one was sure where she had gone. Shortly […]

I heard a homily recently centered around the idea of the “next right thing,” or “one small change.” When I got home and turned to the reflection book I’ve been praying with at night, I found this: “The solution proposed in the Gospels is that of voluntary poverty and the works of mercy. It is […]

Here, for your laughter and enjoyment, is my Completely Unreasonable Summer Reading List. I really do want to read all these books, not necessarily in this order. Preferably soon. Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky) (the second half) The Iliad (Homer) The Making of a Poem (Mark Strand, Eavan Boland) Cilla Lee-Jenkins: Future Author Extraordinaire (Susan Tan) […]

We did a silly thing. We went to a violin rehearsal, despite the flash flood warnings, with the thought that if the weather was really that bad, surely it would have been canceled. Trying to get home, and circling helplessly with all the other soggy cars on the south-west side of Lafayette, I was at […]

Now that Lent is over and the Easter season is in full swing, I thought it would be a good time (!) to share two Lenten reflection books that I really enjoyed this year. Probably I should save this post for right around the beginning of February next year…but there is little chance I’ll remember […]

I have to admit that I was reluctant to begin reading Darkness is as Light…even though some of my own reflections are in it. It’s intended to be emotionally heavy (and it is) and I wasn’t sure that was what I wanted in my life at the moment. On the other hand, I also felt […]

“There is a very good possibility that you will not believe a word I say. Alas, it is the risk all historians take. The truest things are often the most unbelievable.” Thus begins one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton, and […]

I’m so happy to share this beautiful book about a new baby joining the family! Nine Months: Before a Baby Is Born, by Miranda Paul and illustrated by Caldecott Honor Artist Jason Chin uses lively, rhyming text and colorful, touching illustrations to show both the baby’s growth before birth and the joy of her family […]