Inspired by Scholastica

  Inspired by Scholastica Learning from Grief When I read the news headlines today (and most days), I felt overwhelmed with sadness. Most of the news was about shootings, injustices, tragedies, and murders. I wanted to ignore the grief, to put it out of my mind.   But Richard Rohr, a Catholic author, says we need to feel the grief because it has a lot to teach us. It seems the writers of the Psalms knew this. Of the 150 psalms, a third are about grief.   The psalmists grieved being overcome by enemies, losing loved ones, leaving their land, suffering illness, and more. The psalms of lament teach us that there is value in God-oriented exasperation. The psalmists always seemed to know God was with them and would help them survive. Our tears and sorrow are signs of our humanity. Lament is a very deeply spiritual practice. It is important to take time to grieve and to heal from our losses. One author called lament a ritual of cleansing and preparation for what is yet ...

What the World Needs In our success-oriented, social media-driven world, speed is everything. We have to get places fast and find answers immediately. We fill our days with what will benefit or entertain us. But there is an important thing missing and that is empathy. Empathy is the ability to feel with and care about other people. It goes against our tendency to ignore others in our desire to succeed and our preoccupation with the latest news or gossip item on our iPhone. It takes time to look into other people’s eyes and really see them. It takes time to listen to another’s agonizing stories and respond with loving concern. It may even inconvenience us to find something for them or run an errand. What kind of world do we want to pass on to our children? Do we want them to see us rush from one thing to another, unseeing and uncaring? Or do we want them to see us take time to listen to them and care about others’ needs? Empathy is especially important in the classroom, resta...

  Death Penalty Revisited      Our criminal justice system is broken. Too many innocent people have been imprisoned for years, some even executed, due to withholding evidence or inept lawyers. A disproportionate number of people of color are incarcerated, many because of their inability to afford competent lawyers or prejudice on the part of law officials. Just recently a man in Missouri, who claimed his innocence in a murder, was executed by lethal injection. He suffered trauma as a teen when his father was killed in the line of duty as a policeman. The United States is one of the few developed countries that still retains the death penalty. As of 2013, 33 states still use the death penalty: Of the 33 that still retain it, only 25 have executed anyone in the last 10 years. The death penalty is inhumane. It is a proven fact that capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime. Those who are truly guilty of heinous crimes should be sentenced to life in pri...

  Open My Eyes, Lord Walking down the hall, my eyes are open but I do not see the beautiful faces I pass each day, faces wrinkled with age, women who have borne 80 or 90 years of prayer and work, walking a little slower, but ready for whatever the day brings.   Open my eyes to behold each face filled with holiness, with untold stories of a childhood spent mostly on farms, with early risings to do the milking, or feed the pigs, or gather the eggs from the henhouse.   Before catching the 6 o’clock school bus.   Many of them taught in those rural schools, filled with sleepy children, more eager to play than to learn about numbers and words and dates and foreign places. They widened minds and encouraged dreams.   These women also mended many an apron and stocking, scrubbed myriads of bathrooms, mopped hundreds of floors. They exude goodness and wisdom with every step.   Open my eyes, Lord, to know I live wit...