Lessons in love from a growing family
There’s always enough love to go around.
This was not our first rodeo.
After several tense moments of anticipation, the test finally flashed “PREGNANT,” and it became official: our third pregnancy in four years.
The difference between preparing for our first child and our third was night and day.
When my wife, Theresa, and I discovered we were expecting for the first time, we went into expectant parent overdrive: We read books and online articles for new parents that talked through best- and worst-case scenarios. I started a dad blog to capture all my prebirth wonders and worries.
‘Spinning Out’ unmasks the lived experience of mental illness
This Netflix drama sparks meaningful conversations about family life.
Behind the scenes in competitive ice skating, all is not sequins and sweetness in Netflix’s one-season wonder, Spinning Out. The series is compelling for unexpected reasons, and it takes uncommon risks in tackling a verboten topic.
Teach kids how the resurrection guides Catholic life
Though perhaps difficult to explain, belief in the resurrection changes everything.
The story of Jesus’ resurrection is the gospel account most central to the faith of Christians, yet, in a paradox, it’s arguably the most difficult gospel story to believe. Healing the sick and even walking on water begin to seem like minor miracles when compared to being killed on a cross, being dead for three days, and then rising to new life.
Yet if we believe in the resurrection of Christ—if we truly believe—it should change everything about the way we live.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, new mothers seek comfort in faith
To stay present while pregnant, these moms expect the unexpected.
For the first seven months of pregnancy, I made the same comment during every doctor’s visit: “I just want a boring pregnancy.”
The youngest of four children with several nieces and nephews, I grew up hearing stories about childbirth—from the uneventful to the near-cataclysmic. Because of these stories, I’ve always had a respectful fear of pregnancy and childbirth and the pain and dangers that can come along with them.
Struggling with anger? God gives you the tools you need
Anger can paralyze, instead pause and pray.
As a kid growing up in Southern California, I’d pull out the little, red portable record player from under my bed and play one of my favorite records, Music Machine. This Christian record for kids had catchy songs about the fruits of the Holy Spirit. I can still remember all the words to songs about kindness, patience, and joy, but the song on self-control really struck a chord with me.
4 ways to help your child manage fear
Respond to kids' emotions instead of minimizing them.
An old friend of mine likes to joke that if you go to Mass and the opening song is “Be Not Afraid,” you probably have every right to be fearful. Either the Bible readings will make you feel like you’re going to hell in a handbasket or the finance committee will announce the parish is a million dollars in debt!
Parenting with love is not for the faint of heart
Infatuation is easy, but love—especially parental love—is hard work.
In a recent meeting with all the players in our foster daughter’s case—social workers, attorneys, birth parents, adoption experts, and my husband and me—I was asked to give a summary of T’s progress since our last meeting, three months previous. I told the group all of T’s recent successes: being promoted up a level in gymnastics; behaving well (for the most part) in school and at home; scoring on grade level in reading and math. Thinking about how far T had come in the past three years, I smiled.
The terrible brilliance
The genius of faith is that it gives us strength to face suffering head on, says Brian Doyle.
I’ll tell you a story. My wife is an art teacher for kids who are really really sick, a job filled with hilarity and pain, a job she loves, a job that makes her shiver and go for long walks in the hills. She spent a lot of time recently doing art projects with a kid who got sicker and sicker and endured oceans of pain and grew more swollen and weary by the day, and one day I came home to find my wife sad to the bottom of her bones. I asked her what was the matter and she said some things that haunt me still, and I think you should hear them.
This January, resolve to get a jump on forgiveness
Forgiving has much in common with jumping into an icy lake.
On January 1, all over the country, people jump into freezing bodies of water in celebration of a new year. While “polar bear clubs” involve bravado, good cold fun, and sometimes too many Bloody Marys, they also have a more serious side. There is something about our human nature that appreciates a clean slate, a fresh start, a chance to wash away the past and begin again.
To nourish your spirituality, go hands-on in the kitchen
Baking bread can be a profound spiritual lesson.
I have a new living organism—for lack of a better term—to feed in my house. It is my sourdough starter, a beige and pasty mix of wheat flour, water, and yeast that lives in a glass jar in the back of the refrigerator. Once a week it visits the kitchen counter, where it is replenished with water, flour, and oxygen. I sometimes divide it and use half for sourdough crackers or flatbread.
Pages
Which Catholic women inspire you?
Article Your Faith
How Catholics can work for racial justice
Article Justice
Where there is pain, there is God
Article Your Faith
No one had to die for our sins.
Article Your Faith
10 Catholic pilgrimages that don’t require a passport
Article Your Faith