It’s enough to get through the next five minutes — “How are you doing?” I try a half-smile and change the subject. Quick, ask about their kids, their mom’s dialysis, anything. The only ones who get an honest answer to that question are my five wonderful children, my rock, and the only reason I’m still standing. “How is it today?”…

What Would You Say? Could You Say Yes? — Joan Osborne sings, “What if God was one of us? What if you came face to face with Him in all His glory…what would you say?” What did He say to the apostles? Not much, at first. Just “follow Me,” and they did. He touched their hearts, I guess, and…

WHEN THE ONLY WAY THROUGH IS ON OUR KNEES “Where’ve you been?” someone asks. “I haven’t seen you for weeks.” Last summer, my husband fell and broke his leg in three places. It took a long time to mend, but his pain only grew worse. By late October, we discovered…

COMMUNICATE WHAT REALLY MATTERS My younger son, Joe, can’t speak or use his hands to type or hold a pencil. But he’s an intelligent young man, full of questions. He communicates a lot by eye gaze and body position. …

Looking For An Amazing Relationship? Ask, Knock, Seek and Find I didn’t stumble across Isaiah 43 until I was in my 40s. It was a revelation: “Because you are precious in My eyes and I love you.” Foreign words, something you’d read in a romance novel. Said to someone else…

And Why I Wish She Hadn’t — I grew up on the Peninsula, just south of San Francisco, back in the 1960s and 70s. It was beautiful, and affordable back then, green hills rising into the Santa Cruz mountains, planes from San Francisco International taking off over the Bay, heading towards newly-built Foster City. We rode our…

New Location, New Life. Who Are You Anyway? — When my husband and I moved to New York, my new job involved commuting from Long Island to the Upper West Side, where I worked as a production coordinator for ABC. For a fourth-generation Californian, this was an entirely new lifestyle. My previous commute had been a short, carefree drive…

I spent years working as a cantor/church organist in the rural parish where my children grew up. Once they left home, I remarried and moved further north into the Catskill Mountains. There, my husband and I joined another little Catholic community “up the mountain.” They already had plenty of cantors…

Listened to the song by Train, Calling All Angels. I need them close, these celestial messengers. Once you experience the exhilarating presence of angels (and realize they’ll come when you ask) you’ll call them often. When I visit my oldest child, I pray for angels to accompany me on the…