The Virgin of Guadalupe was herself a bit of a troublemaker. She was the ultimate syncretistic saint, speaking in the native language and appearing to many of the locals to be a somewhat Christian-looking version of the Aztec earth-mother goddess Tonantzin.

The church building had become a busy hub of mutual aid and radical hospitality. It always seemed to me that Mary approved; I was glad to think she was as connected to the sex workers and houseless people who relied upon the church as she was to generations of proper English pilgrims.

Lenny Duncan’s first book introduced the world to Lenny Duncan, the writer, who is also Lenny Duncan, the preacher and prophet. United States of Grace is a generous-to-overflowing offering from Lenny Duncan the writer who is also Lenny Duncan the poet.

“If our posture begins with listening and gratitude, the obvious expression back of gratitude would be an expression of hospitality. I think that radical hospitality can be quite powerful, particularly at the neighborhood level where we’re all longing for a space to belong.”

I am from Boston Ivy clutching old brick walls,
Atlantic tides sucked up by the moon,
birch and dark fir forests and the Baltic sea.

At first, Zoom was a lifeline. Then it became a millstone. Why?

Compassion for others is part of the divine spark planted in us at creation. What will you do with it?

Emily describes all the excruciating awkwardness of a new church start in ways that are believable and real. As I read, I am rooting for her and also rooting for everyone with a vision of community like hers.

The talk about the danger of religious gatherings should remind us that houses of worship have always been dangerous places.

Nothing is impossible with God. It is our humanness that makes us say this or that could never happen or will never happen. Most of the time, most of us live lives brimming with possibility. Our cup runneth over.

All I need to know I learned from jigsaw puzzles.

We are in a Magnificat moment. We have never needed the Song of Mary more.