Ray Boshara fondly remembers his grandmother washing and re-using plastic sandwich baggies. Her frugality has inspired him to champion a new era of thrift and stewardship for America.
I lie in bed thinking of the memories these walls hold. I'm visiting my parents, sleeping in my old room, and remembering a night 30 years ago just before I left home to join a religious order. I thought then that nothing would ever be the same, that the next time I returned things would be different at home and I would be different.
At my 30th class reunion, one of the lectures offered was by a young psychologist doing cognitive research. He showed us a three-minute video, and our task was to watch two basketball teams, one in white uniforms and one in black, and count the number of straight passes and the number of bounce passes made by the team in white.
Walking into the dark chapel, gothic arches soaring overhead and didactic glass staining the pews with jewel-toned light, I tried to calm my mind. Papers, classes, work, broken relationships, my future. The thoughts sparked in rapid succession, a finale-on-the-Fourth-of-July-show in my mind. I dropped a knee to the cold floor, blessed myself, and slumped into the nearest pew.
I enjoy being open to spiritual experiences while on the road, and there’s no more spiritual experience than traveling to the developing world. To be with the world’s desperate and downtrodden is to be with Christ. My expertise as a writer and guide, however, is traveling through Europe, which also offers plenty of opportunities to get close to God. Here is my guide to five places in Europe that stoke my spirit.
I will not be attending church this Sunday, because it’s Mother’s Day, and I choose not to be present at that inevitable moment when all the mothers of the congregation are recognized.
All you have to do is show up—and shut up,” said the Jesuit priest, drawing a final chuckle from a group of 40 people settling down for a week of silent retreat. God would do the rest, we were all promised; we had done our part by getting there.
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