The View Up Here

Some of you have been checking in with me about this book, the book that I am writing... the book... that has turned several corners, backed up, run over its own head, careened into the river, onto the bank and through a field of land mines... and still keeps on going. Black Doves is in draft stage, and with some grace, blessing, and a lot of hard work, I hope we are on the road to publication sometime in 2016. So keep in touch... more to come on things as they progress. And thank you for your support.

As you know if you read this blog, I am discerning a religious vocation, which means that I feel the call to become a religious sister. A nun, actually, meaning that I am called to contemplative life. Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent DePaul http://stpatricksconventschool.blogspot.com /2012/03/three-nuns-at-ball-game.html Some folks, well many folks, still think of nuns as circa 1955 with flying buttresses on their heads, vows of silence, self-flagellation, and other eerie and dysfunctional behaviors. For certain, there were some practices that have been done away with. Others never really existed in the first place.  Active apostolate sisters have been out in the world with and without modified habits for longer than you think. But contemplatives are still out there too, in monasteries both rural and urban. I encourage you to look around in your local diocese or archdiocese for women's monastic orders and get to know them by going to Mass there, or even staying ove...

Is mercy really for EVERYONE?  The recent kurfluffle over the Pope's meeting with Kim Davis has demonstrated to me that despite claims of being tolerant and open-minded, some of us are only willing to display mercy to those who are in alignment with our views.  First of all, if you're not up on this issue,  read this clarification on what actually did and did not take place. Also, feast your eyes on this gem of an article  by Robert David Sullivan for America Magazine that warns us of more of this kind of incendiary and wildly inaccurate reporting in presidential campaign coverage to come. Oh, yay. If you don't feel like reading all that, here are a few salient points: The Pope met with dozens of people in what amounted to an assembly line-type of visit, including Kim Davis. Davis described her 15 minutes with the Pope as a private meeting. It was not.  The Pope DID have an audience with an old friend of his, who happens to be gay...