(Photo: Star and I today. Her 1996 college graduation dinner was memorable.) A graduation poses challenges for the multi-wedded. I’ve been married three times, odd for a spirituality columnist to admit, but guess what? I’m an optimist. Experience decrees that when breaking bread with exes, stay positive. Star, my daughter, graduated from college in 1996, […]
Sister Peggy Cummins, age 67, runs a safe house for survivors of sex trafficking. Honoring her vow to chastity for 48 years, she had no experience with either sex or trafficking when she began this work in 2011. Yet the horror and debasement did not shock her. Instead she was jolted by a different realization. […]
At Congregation Beth Shalom of the Blue Hills I sit by the gallery’s fireplace with Lila Rosenbaum, 86. Sunshine warms our backs from the wall-high windows and she speaks of finally “having a home.” The 9,500 square foot temple is tucked to the side of an open field by a stand of old growth trees […]
When Mike Foley was a child and lost something, his mother would say, “It’s just stuff.” However, when he lost a marriage, a job, and three generations’ worth of family heirlooms, it’s not easy. Yet at age 69, the former lieutenant with the Boston Fire Department is not bitter. “I’m not in charge, I leave […]
What a slog to change your inner scenery. For Christians, Lent can be a time for testing spiritual character. I’m somewhere in between that and a second chance at a failed new year’s resolution. With change, a hopeful landscape blooms. I think of this time as a spiritual awakening to a stronger-and-improved you, which originates […]