The Eastern Catholic and Orthodox tradition of Forgiveness Sunday — otherwise known as Get Out of your Comfort Zone Sunday — is fast approaching. (As my husband is canonically a Ukrainian Catholic, I have the good fortune of discovering another world of “new” old practices.) On the Sunday before Lent, during a Vespers service, you … Read more
The Times Online ran a great piece last May on Haiti, highlighting the history of the impoverished nation. Many people don’t know the background story: The appalling state of the country is a direct result of having offended a quite different celestial authority — the French. France gained the western third of the island of … Read more
My girlfriend and I are getting serious. We’ve been involved, on and off, at long and short distances, for several years and have begun to feel the tug of the inevitable — the beckoning warmth of a common hearth, the prospect of bearing each other’s burdens as helpmates, of building up together our own Domestic … Read more
I still remember the pain when my best friend and I stopped attending the same school after first grade. His parents decided he would be better off in a private school. I asked my mom how he could do that, and she explained that his parents were spending a little extra money to send him … Read more
In late November, the air is ripe with motherly anxiety as many of us brace ourselves to “do” Christmas one more time. We ready ourselves for more shopping, more decorating, more entertaining, and more baking. And year after year, despite our best-laid plans and intentions, many of us wind up feeling controlled by materialism, pressured … Read more