Wantonness might be sheer desperation, masking a suicidal self-debasement, but it might also represent a joyful, lusty sexuality that indicated, at heart, a vast generosity of spirit.

When I was a child, it was a matter of pride that I could plow through a Nancy Drew story in one afternoon, and begin another in the evening. . . . I was probably...

It is the community that suffers when it refuses to validate any outside standards, and won’t allow even the legitimate exercise of authority by the professionals it has hired.

But in order to have an adult faith, most of us have to outgrow and unlearn much of what we were taught about religion.

comfort,” so in my reply I addressed that first. I said that I didn’t think it was comfort I was seeking, or comfort that I’d found. Look, I said to her, as a rush of...

Because we are made in God’s image, in fleeing from a relationship with a loving God, we are also running from being our most authentic selves.

At its Greek root, “to believe” simply means “to give one’s heart to.” Thus, if we can determine what it is we give our heart to, then we will know what it is we believe.

Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past. It loses the future.

…the imagination works not so much through inspiration as through perseverance. One must slog through the false starts, spot the wrong words and hold out for the right ones, and above all, be vigilant about...

When you come to a place where you have to left or right,’ says Sister Ruth, ‘go straight ahead.

For me, walking in a hard Dakota wind can be like staring at the ocean: humbled before its immensity, I also have a sense of being at home on this planet, my blood so like...

To eat in a monastery refectory is an exercise in humility; daily, one is reminded to put communal necessity before individual preference. While consumer culture speaks only to preferences, treating even whims as needs to...

The Christian religion asks us to put our trust not in ideas, and certainly not in ideologies, but in a God Who was vulnerable enough to become human and die, and Who desires to be...

True hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person. Henri Nouwen has described it as receiving the stranger on his own terms, and asserts that it can be...

I was taught that I had to ‘master’ subjects. But who can ‘master’ beauty, or peace, or joy?