The final penitential psalm, Psalm 143, takes us to the foot of the cross on Good Friday. The psalmist — perhaps David, on the run from his own son Absolom — has reached the end of his rope.  His “spirit faints,” his heart is “appalled” (vs 4).  He feels trapped and abandoned even by God, […]

One of my enduring memories of 9/11 is the odd yet absolute right-ness of the packed church that night.  Nobody was told to come, there was no mass, no scheduled prayer service – the people just came.  We came together in our grief, our fear, our incomprehension.  We huddled in silent prayer and wept.  Instinctively, […]

The beginning of the end of my Grandmother’s life came early one morning.  I knew she had cancer; but to my young and hopeful mind she would survive. What signaled the change I do not know, but I woke to hushed whispers and frantic activity.  A blood cot to the brain, they said. I loved […]

When I was nine, I stole a big, fat, sugary Boston cream pie from the refrigerator and ate the entire thing behind the trees in the backyard. It wasn’t mine to take.  We didn’t have the open-frig, eat-when-you-want policy that children have today—and we never had desserts that looked like that.  But even worse, I […]