When we left the movie theatre last night, I couldn’t talk for an hour. I love going to films, but they usually don’t hit me in the solar plexus—or should that be soul-er plexus?—the way this one did. The movie was Crackie, a Canadian production filmed in Newfoundland. Mary Walsh is a natural as...
It’s the love in his eyes and voice that bring a lump to my throat when I look at his online photograph or listen to the video below. Brother David Steindl-Rast is a Benedictine monk with a knack for making time-worn concepts seem fresh and new. Theologian Henri Nouwen describes him this way on...
Their fleece was curly. They stood in normal sheep poses. Some grazed, some stared off into space, some lay down. One ram sniffed the back end of a ewe, testing the possibilities for starting the next generation. The field on which the sheep grazed was the floor of Frankfurt’s Museum of Communications. Their faces...
There’s a new ad campaign in the States, and it’s one that shows the value of turning advertising’s bright lights on a social issue. This one focuses on hiring people with disabilities. It points out what’s really at stake here – stereotypes that limit options for those with different abilities – and does so...
A young man dressed in jeans and t-shirt lifted his violin and began to play. It was rush hour in Washington, D.C., on January 12, 2007. The metro station was packed with commuters. Over the next 43 minutes, 1097 people passed by. Most were mid-level government workers hurrying to their jobs. No pop music...
[I subscribe to Lisa Bloom's Kachanga e-zine. When this essay appeared in the last issue, I asked her if I could post it here. You can find more of Lisa's blog entries here. I love it that the Web can link us around the world. Lisa lives in Israel. I live in Canada. We...
My thanks to Tess Healy for this quote, which comes from a book by Laurel Richardson. The story of a life is less than the actual life, because the story told is selective, partial, contextually constructed and because the life is not yet over. But the story of a life is also more than...
Between his diagnosis with lung cancer and his death, Patti Digh’s stepfather had just 37 days to live. The searing process led Patti to ask what she would do if she had only 37 more days. It was a tough question. As she says in an interview on Evolve, “The school lunches still need...
Many of you have sent e-mails telling me that in reading stories and poems or watching videos on Catching Courage, you hear whispers from your own souls. Those e-mails mean a lot to me. This crazy life can wear grooves in our souls. In our darkest hours—and at the summit of our joys—we need...
Thanks to Sharon for sending me this video link. I smiled all the way through it. Watch Kate Nicholas’s face. Making assumptions about someone based on a five-minute video is risky, but what I see is quiet pride, fierce love, absolute commitment, and rock-solid assurance. It takes a lot of all four to audition...
“The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask.” Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea Dee Dee Rainbow shed her mask. Rainbow-striped eyelashes, flowing rainbow clothes, rainbow makeup, rainbow jewelry,...
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