Soul Lace

How close is God to us?  What can we do to get closer to God?  What is it that puts us at a distance from God?  Can we really be at a distance from God?  How do our intentions and actions effect our relationship with God? …

It would seem that we cannot help but be fearful of death.  We don’t understand it and we don’t know what to expect from it.  It is a mystery inasmuch as it is a definite reality for all of us.  We grieve over the loss of loved ones who have died and we (if we allow ourselves the reflection) wonder and lament over our own impending deaths? …

By no means am I a political analyst, but my sense is that much of what happens in campaigns and debates between political candidates and their supporters involves at least a fair amount of hyperbole.  In other words, there is a selection of issues, many if not most of which are hot-button ones, and then there is an elaborate description that accompanies the issue, weighted in its telling by the prejudicial position of the speaker. …

There are times when, without warning or expectation, a single moment explodes into an intensity of experience that defies description. It’s a feeling of being overwhelmed by something so much greater than me, which seems to encompass all.  It has happened in nature, standing on a mountaintop, taking in all the mysterious and brilliant grandeur of the universe from the standpoint of a small insignificant point of reception – me. …

My early understanding of holiness was confined solely within images of pious stances like hands clasped in prayer and devotional behavior.   To be holy was to act obediently and to somehow coalesce with the bigger picture of the Church and its teachings. …