The following quote is part of a comment I left on another weblog today: The game of life is messy. You are going to get hurt sometimes, and at times, you cannot not hurt those you love. Are you going to get in the game or sit on the sideline? Are you going to get […]
Late Friday night. I stepped out into the darkness of the night into the first big drops of rain as they began to fall. Moments before, I had been sobbing in prayer inside my car, shaking my fist to Jesus as to why, begging for help, crying in heart ache, pleading. I was tired. I […]
Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and […]
At the archdiocesan teacher inservice today, the speaker briefly recalled Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous line from his speech many years ago, and connected it to our hopes and aspirations within our own schools. She then asked us to turn to the person next to us and tell them our own dream. “My dream”, I […]
I had a dream last night that I met Jesus. I had so longed to look into His eyes. And finally, there I was, face to face with Him. I looked deep into His eyes. I smiled and I cried. There was love. There was mercy. There was peace. It was awesome. Then I realized […]
I was driving an old beat up silver Ford van. My friend was sitting in the backseat wearing blue jeans, a white t-shirt and sandals. The middle row of seats had been pulled out long ago. We pulled up and parked in an empty small gravel parking lot on the side of a two-lane road […]
Something recently reminded of what I occasionally do with my students. I don’t do it very often (maybe I should). I usually do this in the hallway during a passing period between classes. I will only pick out randomly one or three students. They are usually mine, but not always. As a student approaches me, […]
The experience of losing your faith, or of having lost it, is an experience that in the long run belongs to faith; or at least it can belong to faith if faith is still valuable to you, and it must be or you would not have written me about this. I don’t know how the […]
It was the day after Christmas. The pastor of the church was looking over the Nativity scene when he noticed that the baby Jesus was missing from the cradle among the figures. Immediately he turned and went outside and saw a little boy with a red wagon, and in the wagon was the figure of […]
I received this in an email this morning… Each December, I vowed to make Christmas a calm and peaceful experience. I had cut back on nonessential obligations—extensive card writing, endless baking, decorating, and even overspending. Yet still, I found myself exhausted, unable to appreciate the precious family moments, and of course, the true meaning of […]
Most people are familiar with the story about the footprints in the sand. Here’s a different set of footprints… Now imagine you and the Lord walking down the road together. For much of the way, the Lord’s footprints go along steadily, consistently, rarely varying the pace. But your prints are a disorganized stream of zigzags, […]
In last night’s episode of Joan of Arcadia called “Friday Night”, her troubled friend Judith teaches Joan how to juggle. Near the end of the show after a very emotional scene, God asks Joan a metaphorical riddle: God: Did you ever hear the riddle about the man, his boxes, and the bridge? A man had […]
A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: “I don’t believe that God exists.” […]
I just got back from an awesome, four-day retreat with high school junior and senior girls. I was one of the co-directors of the retreat in conjunction with the other catholic high school in town. This is the first of three this year. The boys are up next in January. I have written about this […]
Last week, my quote on the corner of the chalkboard in my classroom was: You have to unzip your heart before you unzip your pants. Written in parenthesis under the quote was, “In other words, why would you trust your most precious sexuality with someone you do not trust with the secrets of your heart?” […]
On Wednesday, we put the whole school, all 300 or so students, faculty, staff, even the cafeteria ladies, on buses and drove out of town for about an hour trip to Our Lady of Guadalupe Camp (OLOG) in eastern Oklahoma County. It’s cool to see the whole school get together and move to a place […]
The previous entry reminded me of a story. A priest visited a Trappist Monastery for a couple weeks as a retreat for rejuvenating his spirit. (I think the priest was Henri Nouwen.) The abbot confided in the priest that he was thinking of asking one of the novices to leave the community. He asked the […]
My students have a nickname for me. They call me “Mister Woo”. You know that they like you if you have a nickname, at least one they can call you in front of your face. It all started three years ago during the first couple months at my new high school. I was not so […]
Inspired by Karen and Steve: What would I blog about if I could blog today? I’d write about how this pair of birds, little swallows or swifts, not sure which, built a nest over my front door; how they had a family of five in June; and how they grew up and flew away to […]
One day as a small opening appeared on a cocoon, a man sat for several hours watching the butterfly struggle to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no further. So […]
One day, Satan and Jesus were having a conversation. Satan had just come from the Garden of Eden, and he was gloating and boasting. “Yes, sir, I just caught the world full of people down there. Set me a trap, used bait I knew they couldn’t resist. Got ’em all!” “What are you going to […]
A story about a little girl’s daily faith in watering a cup of dirt and expectation of a miracle.
Here we are living in time you and I. Yesterday is gone. We are waiting for tomorrow. And the present moment eludes us even as we try to grasp it. God lives in eternity, where there is no yesterday. There is no tomorrow. God is not waiting for the sunset or the dawn. God lives […]
Only you can choose to be happy or sad. No one else can make that choice. Are you going to let someone else choose it for you?
Once there were three trees on a hill in the woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when the first tree said, “Someday I hope to be a treasure chest. I could be filled with gold, silver and precious gems. I could be decorated with intricate carving and everyone would see the beauty.” Then […]