Late in the evening when the house is still, The quiet can feel like an absence. I have known that darkness and The prayer that comes with it. It makes the heart ache and The mind vacant. There's the Name too. It's hard to whisper in those moments Because the fear of His abandonment feels real And the desire for wisdom seems fake. I've been there. I'll bet you have, too. It makes you close your eyes and Hold your arms tightly across your waist. Eventually .... and There's alw

Somewhere deep inside, Beneath my titles, My work, My relationships, My words, and If I'm being honest, My own noise ... There is a flame burning. I did not kindle it. It was given as a gift. It was fostered by saints, (and, oddly, some sinners too). I tended to it by Sacrament and Silence (not nearly enough ... yet!) And it has never once been extinguished ... Ever! This is the great, joyful secret of my life (it could be yours too, by the way). God is not far away. The ligh

Written on the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001 I. The morning the words ran out I made my living with words. I was trained as a journalist. I spent years in public affairs and crisis communication for energy and chemical companies, writing the sentences that get said when something has gone badly wrong. I studied how disputes are negotiated and how public arguments are framed. By the autumn of 2001 I was in Houston, teaching and advising at a graduate school of theolog

He was drawn from the water, and then Drawn into fire. We remember Moses, Who fled to Midian and Found on Horeb A bush that burned Without being consumed. Light without heat, Presence without possession. He led Israel through the sea As though it were dry ground, and Climbed Nebo To die within sight of a Promised Land he would not enter. Yet he entered. On Tabor he stood beside Elias In the uncreated light, His long waiting was fulfilled in Christ, Glorified and Transfigured.

I look up and I ask Why me? You have the whole of heaven And the entire universe And all the angels and the saints. Nothing and no one that grows weary. Yet, You still know me and Care about me You come to me in my sin You come to me in my silence You even have a will for me As if You have nowhere better to be and No one better to help. But this is Your way. You walked in the garden In the cool of the day, Calling and calling. As it turns out, I was the one who heard You, And

Love is the one thing God asks of us that He first gave to us. Before we could offer anything back, He loved us into existence. We often treat love as a feeling that Arrives and departs on its own schedule. Scripture treats it as a choice, A willingness to remain when remaining costs something. That is why divine love is beautiful. Anyone can feel affection. But it takes grace to keep loving on the days When affection has gone quiet. And love is what will outlast us. Our know

There is nothing accidental about this silence. It is curated as a weapon dressed as absence. To ghost another human being with intent is To exercise a Luciferian arrogance. It is the belief that one soul may simply Erase another without consequence or confession. It is wrath without declaration, Cruelty without fingerprints. The perpetrator vanishes, yet their damage metastasizes In the victim's mind indefinitely, which is precisely the design. They do not leave you grieving

There is a black obelisk that Rose without warning. Ominous, absolute, and indifferent. Quaintly called 'the silent treatment,' It was erected without consent Like a monolith from an ancient, merciless cosmos. Its surface offers nothing. No handhold and no reflection, No light and no warmth. You circle it day in and day out. You try to speak to it. You implore, but it gives nothing. This is not absence. It is a presence. A deliberate, destructive dark energy. Its purpose is t

A short reflection to help you deepen your relationship with the Holy Spirit. Read : "If the Holy Spirit is peace of soul ... as He is in reality, and if anger is disturbance of heart, as it actually is ... then nothing so prevents His presence in us as anger" (St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent , Step 8: On Freedom from Anger, #14). Ponder: Anger is a killer that destroys our relationship with God, self, and others. Here are a few steps we can take to reduce or e

You begin to forget who you were before them. The silence they weaponized taught you to shrink. Every room became a minefield, you learned to read the air before breathing it. Their voice replaced your own, until doubt felt more familiar than certainty. You isolated not because you wanted solitude, but because explaining the inexplicable exhausted you. You scanned faces, tones, and pauses for danger. You became a student of someone else's moods, a stranger to your own. The cr