The day before yesterday, my eighteen-month-old daughter grabbed the bent-pull handle of a kids’ plastic wagon more than twice her size, then ran down the sidewalk next to our house, the wagon bumping wildly behind her. It was a perfect breezy, sunny Indian Summer afternoon. I ran along beside her, both to protect her from…

We were having dinner at a friend’s house: a gathering of colleagues enjoying one another’s company with good food, relaxed conversation, a glass of wine. While we spoke of neighborhoods, children, and schools, it dawned on me that my friend, Doug, lived just doors from my grandparents’ old house. My grandparents are now long dead,…

This month I bought a large framed photograph of the Holy Spirit. Impossible, you say? Heretical, perhaps? But imagine this: An empty dance floor in an old school or a city loft somewhere. A row of casement windows open to the breeze, light streaming in. A single metal folding chair against the far wall. And…