Holding Space
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Make a Will (Lenten Practice)
You’ve likely heard the phrase, memento mori. Or you’ve seen those 17th century paintings with the skulls in them. The Latin, “remember you must die,” refers to such visual reminders of death. Some saints are depicted with human skulls—constant reminders of their mortality. And you thought Ash Wednesday services were morbid. The remembrance of death
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What Is Spiritual Direction?
My first spiritual director was Sister Catherine. I’d read about direction, and the only way I knew to find someone was to call the local Catholic center. Also, I figured a woman whose life is devoted to prayer has to be good one to learn from. Whatever your feelings about religious orders, they do a
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Wounds
One January morning I woke as I had every other morning that January, only this time I could not remember how to make my limbs move. I lay in bed watching the clock creep closer to the time I needed to get up. I tried to remember how I’d done it in the past; it
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The Man on the Mountain
After we watched the helicopter depart with its black body-sized package hanging below, watched the new widow follow a ranger down the trail, retrieved the backpack that had flown into a ravine from the circulating air, we contemplated what to do next. “Well, shall we finish?” We were half a mile from the peak and
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“I Thirst”
When a person nears the final days of their life, their organs slowly shutting down, their sleep stretching around the clock, they usually lose the ability to drink water. Sometimes they become too sleepy and disoriented, sometimes they simply aren’t thirsty anymore, and sometimes they begin to choke when they swallow. In hospice, when this
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Luna Moths
The first time I saw a luna moth, Max was letting it flutter around the room, retrieving it when it landed on a table leg, the arm of a couch. He’d caught it, somehow, in the Arkansas night and had brought it in to show me. I thought bugs that size only existed in the
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