-
Understanding Suicide
Canadian poet, Margaret Atwood, says that it is not enough to say certain things just once. Some things need to be said, and said, until they don’ need to be
-
Songs of Innocence and Experience
One of my favorite writers, Christopher de Vinck, once wrote a series of essays entitled, Songs of Innocence and Experience. Those two words, innocence and experience, don’t easily go together.
-
Wrestling with God
In his memoir, Report to Greco, Nikos Kazantzakis shares this story: As a young man, he spent a summer in a monastery during which he had a series of conversations
-
Everyday Life as Sacrament
For Christians, ultimately the whole world is holy and everything in it, especially the physical, is potential material for sacrament. Our belief is that the universe shows forth God’s glory,
-
Accepting Disappointment in Love
In many of her novels, Anita Brookner, almost as a signature to her work, will make this comment: The first task of a couple in marriage is to console each
-
Our Three Temptations
Cosmologists today tell us that the universe has no single center. Its center is everywhere, every place, every planet, every city, every species, and every person. But we already know
-
Soul-Chained to Things Beyond Us
In his novel, Clowns of God, Morris West suggests that there are deep reasons why we are so incurably restless: “The fact is that we live only in communion –
-
Sustaining a Prayer Life
It’s hard to sustain a regular life of prayer. Why? Why is it so difficult to pray regularly? Some reasons are obvious: over-busyness, tiredness and too many demands on our
-
Don’t Worship Your Emotions
Every major spiritual tradition offers this challenge: Don’t worship your emotions! Don’t love only when you can feel natural sympathy. Don’t love only when you can feel good and clean
-
Celebrating Life inside the Communion of Saints
Recently I led a memorial service for a friend who had died four years ago. Everyone who came to this service had also been at his funeral. Why another memorial
https://ronrolheiser.com/celebrating-life-inside-the-communion-of-saints/