Rusty Ring

I saw this film when it was new, beside a beautiful young woman with whom I did not yet realise I was in love. She was also a German...

Love is an act of courage, a losing bet that makes all who place it holy. Absurdity, sacrifice, and heartbreak are integral to it; mark...

In the early days of my monastic practice, a Franciscan friend shared a bit of his acquired wisdom with me: "You should only eve...

I was difficult when I was younger. Part of me would like to go back and face some of those challenges and circumstances again, ex...

This week I encountered a piece of apparent fluff from The Stranger , Seattle's edgier (or maybe just more sophomoric) alternative n...

Asleep on my lap in bed. Three days ago I had the sad duty of accompanying my mother's cat out of this life. A cherished family mem...

Once, when I was in Grade 2, my teacher had all of us save our milk carton from lunch. Afterward we folded it into a flower pot, filled i...

"When you say 'I love you', you should know at least one of those people." Oscar Brown, Jr (Photo courtesy of ...

(This log washed up the day before I took this picture, after a violent storm. As the declaration of troth it bears is clearly not fres...

It's human to love the things that support us. I thought of Tom Hanks and his volleyball friend Wilson. I hadn't named my walking s...

Three things you must always say when they are true, and must never say when they are not true: I'm sorry. I love you. You can c...

A year ago this month the suicide of a former student prompted me to get real on polite society's fancy backside and name the actual ...

...and in the end   the love you take   is equal to the love   you make. Lennon-McCartney (Last line of the last song on the last alb...

(See also Suicide: The Cure .) A former student of mine recently committed suicide. He was a truly exceptional young man, still in his c...

The advent of Father's Day puts me in mind of Sherman Alexie's riff on Forgiving Our Fathers , a poem by Dick Lourie. This is somet...

Loyalty, forgiveness, and reconciliation make me cry. Death and suffering and loss, these also touch me; I'm sensitive and I won...

"We are all surprised when when we read a story about two people who fall in love and marry even though one is terminally ill. It...

Woody Allen once said "Eighty percent of success is just showing up." I agree with him. And eighty percent of love is just hold...