In the wake of terror and violence, a Facebook friend rallied against desensitization or surrendering to despair. But what else is there to feel? Paranoia? Revenge? Hatred? I needed another option. This is the season for love and goodwill, but headlines disconnected me from holiday cheer, such as writing Christmas cards. Then, I thought, why […]
Nationally, Thanksgiving is a collective mindset of gratitude to forces greater than ourselves. Like a Norman Rockwell painting, heads bow over grace when families gather, everyone primed for thanks. Yet for many, saying grace is the holiday exception, not the daily rule. Many might ask, “Well, isn’t a group blessing just the official signal to […]
Black Friday is aptly named. Everyone’s dark side is out when the last nerve is drilled down trying to buy that “smart” toy, a tie, or the last leather bag in saddle brown. Now big sales on Thanksgiving splinter the holiday further. Is the football game on the wide screen TV the only glue holding […]
The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey is the size of four soccer fields, a shopper’s Nirvana packed to its mosaic rafters with pashminas, pottery, exotic lanterns, evil eye keychains, and rugs, rugs, rugs. Every day about 250,000 shoppers teem through its corridors and tunnels. While there, the lack of female salespeople surprised me. The beginnings […]
Mary, Jesus’s mother, spent her last days in Turkey, and I visited her house, surrounded by maple trees, high above the ancient Roman ruins of Ephesus, five miles from the Aegean Sea, now rebuilt by the Catholic Church as a holy place. After Jesus entrusted his mother and apostle John into each other’s care, it […]