Letting Go of Their Needs to Fill My Own
I have become suspicious of anyone who offers, entertains, or allows only two choices: black or white, right or wrong, saint or sinner, pure or contaminated, pro- or anti-. Reality doesn’t work that way. God doesn’t work that way. I…
Is Any of This Real?
How many times have I heard my sister say, “I need to touch it”? Whether we were shopping at the mall, appreciating a friend’s new dress, or entertaining my kids, the words have invariably crossed her lips. She says it…
Just a Pebble in a Pond
St. Thérèse taught the value of the “Little Way”—a path to holiness that lay in performing all our daily tasks and duties in a spirit of love and in the presence of God. Dorothy embraced this teaching. She believed that…
Can We Trust Our Eyes?
Lately, I’ve been thinking and writing about the nature of reality, because—I guess—I’ve been trying to find it. If we are somehow not in touch with reality, though, what, exactly, is it that surrounds us? Good question, no? Is it…
The Cave
Our lives are filled with assumptions that most of take as true. We see these things with our eyes, hear them with our ears; sometimes, we touch, taste, or smell them. I am holding this big, heavy, dull grey rock…
Meaning and Reality
Questions about reality have come up over and over and over in the last year. When answers have been found, they’ve not always been satisfactory, although they have consistently led me to further questions. Oh, but now, that last sentence…
Who Wanted It First?
Yesterday, I tried to put my finger on what separates me from so many people I encounter. I tossed around one notion after another, but none felt quite right until I hit upon the word “quest.” Yet even that misses…
What Does Anybody Know?
I once worked with a guy who had flown Lear Jets before trading that career for a more mundane one at a quasi-governmental agency. I asked him why he stopped flying, and he told me about a saying among pilots:…
My Own Story
How does my story compare to that of anyone else’s? Why do I ask? Why do I care? Well, singer/songwriter/author Tori Amos started me on this path today. I recently read her second book, Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope,…
Mom Planted Petunias
I’ve started questioning reality. Every turn around the Internet block makes me feel like I’m in the fiction stacks of my local library, where I’m picking books at random, reading a few pages, then placing each back on the shelf…
Peaks and Valleys
At the end of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo says to Sam, “Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years.” My mind continually…
The Terrifying Power of Words
I sometimes wonder if I fill my world with too many words: the ones on the screen, on the page, on my tongue, in my ear. Banishing some might me do me good, but which ones? It’s not as straightforward…
