She lived three doors away on our short street and, at age 96, ranked as our most beloved neighbor. We all knew her as a woman who felt passionately about life and who approached daily living in the spirit of adventure. Always anxious to find out for herself what was real, she had a reputation for risk-taking.

In her twenties she lived in Paris and met James Joyce and his wife Nora. Maud also got acquainted then with Ernest Hemingway. Decades later, at age 79 she traveled alone to explore parts of Africa and returned changed by the experience.

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At a press conference he gave in Orlando, Florida two weeks ago, former president Jimmy Carter took questions centered on his new book, The Virtues of Aging. Having just read the book myself, I asked Mr. Carter a question bearing on his spirituality, a subject that sometimes comes up in its pages.

Specifically, this was what I asked: “Do you find, as an older person, that your ideas about God have changed in any way?” Mr. Carter clearly found the question provocative and responded to it at length.

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“The three richest people in the world own assets that exceed the combined gross domestic products of the world’s poorest 48 countries,” according to the United Nations Development Report.

“Among the 4.4 billion people who live in developing countries, three-fifths have no access to basic sanitation,” says the same source.

Even within the United States, the gap between rich and poor has continued to widen, so much so that many Americans see it as a serious threat to our national well-being.

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The cello, an instrument speaking sensuously, revealing what cannot otherwise be expressed; producing sound which reaches beyond itself and myself. Each concerto note, so fleeting, so subtle, carries reality provoking in me awe and wonder.

Is anything closer to the soul than music, more like it? So insubstantial, yet powerful.

But how to grasp each individual sound as it appears and then almost instantaneously disappears? My frustration: that I cannot reach all of it.

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Seeing up close a devoted pastor at work, as I did two weeks ago, can up-lift the soul. On a visit to his church in Cocoa Beach, Florida, I had the chance to observe how a truly dedicated priest serves his God and his people. I came away from the experience buoyed up in spirit and encouraged that such a person is at work in the church.

Eamon Tobin grew up on a farm in rural Ireland. As a boy he did all of the chores which fall to a farmer’s sons – – milking the cows, keeping track of the sheep, and bringing in the hay, among other tasks. Going off to the seminary at a young age, he remedied the many gaps in the education provided him in his native village’s one-room schoolhouse.

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“The three richest people in the world own assets that exceed the combined gross domestic products of the world’s poorest 48 countries,” according to the United Nations Development Report.

“Among the 4.4 billion people who live in developing countries, three-fifths have no access to basic sanitation,” says the same source.

Even within the United States, the gap between rich and poor has continued to widen, so much so that many Americans see it as a serious threat to our national wellbeing.

Continue reading →

The best known Catholic theologian in the world today is probably Hans Kϋng, a Swiss priest celebrated as teacher and writer. Ironically, however, this renowned interpreter of Christianity to the modern world has operated since 1979 under a cloud. In that year the Vatican withdrew official approval of him as a teacher of Catholic theology. He continues a priest in good standing but he is not allowed to claim church backing for his teaching.

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