A most amazing video went viral this week following the terrorists’ attacks in Paris. At a memorial site, a father named Angel Le and his little son Brandon were interviewed by a reporter from “Le Petit Journal.” Reporter (R) to Brandon: Do you understand what…

Angus Deaton won a Nobel prize in economics for his study on intricate measures of human well-being, but his latest study has created more buzz than any other published work he has done. What is the topic of his latest study? Since 1999, there is…

I felt positively touched this week by a politician with whom I completely disagreed, until he spoke about addiction. A popular Huffington Post video on Facebook of Chris Christie showed him telling stories about 1) his mother’s addiction to nicotine and eventual lung cancer and…

Today, I am leaving the Big Sky Country of Billings, Montana after staying here for a few days. My father was born here and grew up nearby on the Crow Nation reservation. What impresses me is the huge sky above the plains that nothing really…

Our pink kimi ginger garden is in full blossom bordering the polished coral walkway to our front door. Its leafy green stalks and ten-inch ice cream cone-shaped blossoms stand short to thirteen feet tall. They grow densely like a miniature jungle, threatening to overwhelm passers…

If you are not happy or even if you are, this is a worthwhile exercise. Spend a few moments writing down the answer to these three questions. 1. How did you get to this situation in life? What does it reveal about your purpose in…

I was watching a recording of the new Stephen Colbert Show at breakfast with my dog Rafa. Rafa and I like it because this is a good way for us to keep up with the hottest stars, which we have been ignoring until now. Colbert…

One summer during seminary, I did chaplaincy training (Clinical Pastoral Education) in a Catholic hospital in Western Massachusetts. The priest and nun who supervised assigned us as students to do something no one would be allowed by law to do now. They assigned us to…

Sooner or later, we will all be wounded. Wealth and good fortune can only protect us for a while, if we are that lucky. Eventually, we will experience a devastating loss, a divorce, a death, a disaster, an addiction, an encounter with the law, a…

Mr. Costa was only forty-one years old and the single father of two teenage daughters. His black hair showed just a bit of gray and his square jaw had a stubble of beard. He was handsome, but thin, pale and weary-looking. As expected, he was…