Knowledge is learning something everyday, wisdom is letting go of something everyday. -Unknown

We are celebrating the WNBA Champion Golden State Valkyries here in San Francisco, following a festive Halloween Saturday. Sports abound on the TV in my household, with a few football games today and even a hockey game. Brigid and I squeezing in a bike ride in between games on this beautiful Sunday. I hope you enjoy the poems and the 60 Minutes episode – great reading and storytelling to promote the beauty of the arts and the power of a reflective perspective..the poems are from a podcast I listened to during a beautiful walk I took this week in Golden Gate Park. Enjoy and blessings on your week ahead!

Everyday Grace

By Stella Nesanovich

It can happen like that:

meeting at the market,

buying tires amid the smell

of rubber, the grating sound

of jack hammers and drills,

anywhere we share stories,

and grace flows between us.

The tire center waiting room

becomes a healing place

as one speaks of her husband’s

heart valve replacement, bedsores

from complications. A man

speaks of multiple surgeries,

notes his false appearance

as strong and healthy.

I share my sister’s death

from breast cancer, her

youngest only seven.

A woman rises, gives

her name, Mrs. Henry,

then takes my hand.

Suddenly an ordinary day

becomes holy ground.

When you feel like you’re cared for and loved, you feel like you could be your best. – Natalie Nakasie

This week I share some recent resources from Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. With these reflections, we are invited to discern our own experiences and understanding of home. For me, it’s all about belonging and community. I have been blessed throughout my life to feel at home in a variety of settings – indoors and outdoors – and now embrace the opportunity and privilege to enjoy home across settings. God is good!

This week’s image represents a mural and stairwell new to me from an urban hike last week in a nearby neigborhood. I love encountering newness amidst familiar journeys. Blessings on your week ahead!

The overarching narrative of the Bible is that of humanity searching for home…. It is a powerful story, rich in literary ambiguity—the earth, us, home, and God are almost interchangeable characters in this ancient record of humankind’s aching search to dwell.
—Diana Butler Bass

Our Heart’s Longing for Home

In an episode of the Everything Belongs podcast, James Finley reflects on homesickness as part of the spiritual landscape:

Imagine you’re driving home at the end of the day and the sun is setting. At first you don’t pay any attention to it, because the sun sets every night. But on this particular night, it’s particularly beautiful, and you’re prompted to pull over and get out of the car. You sit on the ground, giving yourself over to the beauty of the setting sun, giving itself over to you.

If we meditate on that moment, we notice that it’s a moment of heightened awareness. It’s not lethargic or dull, but it’s also true that in this moment you’re not thinking, or whatever thing you are thinking doesn’t measure up to the richness of the awareness.  

So one way to put it is: In this moment, the “thinking you” and all that it thinks is transcended…. In all the eons from the beginning of the universe till now, the sun has never set before tonight, ever. And for all the eons to come, it will never set again in this same way, so it’s virginal and new. So, the remembering self and all that it remembers is transcended; there’s just the newness of the eternality of now….

In that moment you experience a deep kind of homecoming, like you belong there, and there’s a resting in this. You’re also not in time, because it’s prolonged. When you get up to leave, you have to look at your watch to see how much time passed, because you weren’t in time.

So you get home and pull the car in the garage. You’re standing in the kitchen, going through the mail, and you remember the moment of the setting sun, and you ask yourself this question: “Why do I spend so many of my waking hours trapped on the outer circumference of the inner richness of my life? I know the inner richness is there, because I experienced it, but it’s like I’m not at home in my own home.”

What is the path through which I can become more deeply at home in God, resting in me, resting in God forever? It’s a foreshadowing of eternal life. That’s what I think of as homecoming, a longing to be at home….  All our ways of living have built right into them opportunities for that kind of homecoming. I think as we move along, a deeper insight is that this longing, this homesickness, is an echo of God’s longing for us. For in the reciprocity of the longing, the longing is consummated.

Love has more stamina than hate. -De La Soul

This morning I am in the office early and I look out my window and view the sun rising over the Napa hills. I am blessed!

Wishing you a good week ahead.

Ultimately, doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbling with God means trusting that God alone is the soil for my roots, God alone is the true foundation. -Michael E. Lee

“The Benefit of Doubt,” Varina Buntin Willse

I smile when I think about the way Jesus responded to his disciples when he was trying to teach them things. With deep sighs, he would marvel at how much they—the ones closest to him, the ones most devoted to the cause—missed. The people more able to absorb the fullness of Jesus’s message were the ones he advocated for directly; everyone else was enthralled but largely confused.

This is in part because Jesus was not exactly direct. When teaching, he speaks in parables whose meanings are hard to discern and easy to misconstrue. Why? I think this is another, more subtle form of Jesus’s advocacy. Refusing to spoon-feed answers, he impels his followers to think for themselves so that they might act according to an understanding and a set of principles that they have developed rather than one dictated by a person in authority. Jesus is the reigning champion of critical thinking.

“How do we live out the Golden Rule? With love – no ordinary love, but radical love.” -Cameron Bellm

My daughter played a Halloween soundtrack on the car ride to school this morning and she helped to get me into the season. October is here. My car rides into school in the morning with my youngest kids, and our daughter’s best friend, often bring me great joy and lots of laughter. At one point, we turn a curve and view a panoramic view of the San Fancisco cityscape, and this morning’s involved a beautiful streak of fog as well. God is good.

It’s been a blur of a few weeks with lots of travels and plenty of activity on the home front, so I am just rolling with it. I’m happy to share some recent readings that have helped me keep perspective amidst many moving parts. Blessings on your week ahead!

“How do we live out the Golden Rule? With love – no ordinary love, but radical love, love that sees no distinction between those who open their arms to us and those who turn their backs to us. It’s wildly countercultural, yes, it’s the best way – the only way- to change the world.” -Cameron Bellm

“The manner and degree to which we actually apply our faith depends on how receptive and trusting we are of God’s words. Our capacity for such receptivity and trusting we are of God’s words. Our capacity for such receptivity and trust is grounded, for better or worse, in our humanity. The journey to God passes through our humanity, via our reactions to our lived experiences…

Biblical wisdom constitutes the right ordering of the world through our relationship with one another, our relationship with the natural world, and our relationship with God.”             Fr. John Kartje, Give Us This Day

“Peacemakers: Building a Fraternal World”

(From International Lasallian Days for Peace)

Pope Leo teaches that peace begins within the human heart. Saint John Baptist de La Salle reminds us that education is the work of touching hearts. Every classroom, every athletic competition, every conversation, and every act of kindness becomes a place where Christ builds peace. We are all role models—whether we are students, faculty, or staff. Our call is to be daily peacemakers.

Peace is a universal longing across all cultures and spiritual traditions. Let’s reflect on these words of wisdom:

From Christianity: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

From Judaism (Prophet Isaiah): “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn

war anymore.”

From Islam (Sura 51): “The descendants of Adam are members of one body. If fate causes pain to a single member, the other members lose their peace.”

From Buddhism (Metta-Sutta): “Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, let us cultivate a boundless heart of love toward all beings.”

From Hinduism (Indian Proverb): “Love can’t be hidden by hiding.”

From Taoism (Tao Te Ching (31): “Weapons are the tools of violence, all decent men detest them. Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst

necessity and, if compelled, will use them only with utmost restraint. Peace is the highest value… He enters a battle gravely, with sorrow and with great compassion, as if he were

attending a funeral.”

From Confucianism (Proverb): “If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.”

From Native American Spirituality (Chief Seattle): “We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”

God loves a cheerful giver. -Fr. James Martin, SJ

Life back on the road for work, combined with the start to the academic year at home as well, leads toward a full start to this month of September…and now I realize it’s almost October, ha! I hope that the official end to summer tomorrow marks a welcome time of transition and forward progress for all of us. Blessings on your week ahead.

A Quote On Service

Real discipleship is a tipsy arrangement at the very least. People with high need for approval, social status, and public respectability need not apply.

-Joan Chittister

“Walking in Beauty”

In beauty I walk.

With beauty before me I walk.

With beauty behind me I walk.

With beauty above me I walk.

With beauty around me I walk.

It has become beauty again.

Today I will walk out, today everything negative will leave me.

I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body.

I will have a light body, I will be happy forever, nothing will hinder me.

I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me.

I walk with beauty below me. I walk with beauty above me.

I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful.

In beauty all day long may I walk.

Through the returning seasons, may I walk.

On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.

With dew about my feet, may I walk.

With beauty before me may I walk.

With beauty behind me may I walk.

With beauty below me may I walk.

With beauty above me may I walk.

With beauty all around me may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.

My words will be beautiful…

(A Navajo Prayer)

Dialogue with the world is not a tactical choice …but a concrete expression (of the Gospel). -Pope Leo

This week I share several inspirations from my daily reflection book, a podcast, and a text from my sister-in-law. God is good. I count myself blessed to access these resources on a regular basis to assist me feeling grounded amidst a busy back to school time. Blessings on your week ahead!

“Be on the lookout for mercies. The more we look for them, the more of them we will see…Better to lose count while renaming your blessings than to lose your blessings to count your troubles.” -Malthie D. Babcock

“This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school, or church, or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.”

— Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Passage recited by Martin Sheen, The Martin Sheen Podcast, Season 4, Episode 5, “Daughters Great & Grand,” August 30, 2026.

In an age when information is cheap, the greatest educational good is the ability to discern what is good and the agency to act upon it. -Luke Burgis

Today I am sharing two resources from the National Catholic Reporter. I spent the morning on a high school campus and could not agree more with the sentiments of this article, “Look to the teenagers, the ones who remind us how to hope.” And the thoughts below on the importance of listening resonate with how I experience the needs of today as well. Blessings on your week ahead!

Listening- Sr. Nancy Sylvester

Listening is transformative. Whenever I teach about the transformative power of contemplation, listening is a key component. Contemplation invites us to listen in new ways, not simply to our own thoughts but to enter into a deeper silence that at first might seem empty but is actually quite full — of the presence of divine mystery animating our hearts. That silence awakens us to what we might have thought was the way things are and opens us to a new way of seeing ourselves and the world. Over time, contemplation frees us to respond rather than react to the world around us. 

Listening is not easy today. We are inundated with podcasts, blogs, videos and photos, all moving across our screens faster and faster. The content might either be totally one-sided or in such a mix that we’re dizzy with what to believe. We need to slow down. Not only to comprehend what is happening but to be able to enter into a stillness where we can see more clearly who we are and what we believe. 

We need that stillness to be able to “feel” that shift that jars us to look again with fresh eyes at what we believe. That shift gives us the freedom to change, to use different lenses to see the world and to respond out of love to what is being asked of us today. 

This past week I have spent time in several schools and alongside trusted colleagues. I always enjoy the chance to be with my co-workers, whether it be on the road or when we find ourselves in the office at the same time. Between work and home, the fresh start to a new school year brings warmth and comfort, and the people who make this possible – my kids and fellow educators- are a light to me. Today I share several reflections from my daily reader, Give Us This Day, along with a beautiful recent concert by artist Sarah McLachlan.

Blessings on your week ahead!

Righteous Justice – Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez

For those who gave gone astray, we are called first to pray (for them), and second to pursue righteous justice. The latter, too, is a deep act of love because justice compels the wayward to confront the harm they’ve done and invites repentance. In this way, our struggle for justice makes visible God’s unrelenting love for the poor and marginalized. Our hope is that one day we might all rejoice when those who have gone astray remember God’s love- and love all people as God’s children once again.

The Spirit of Forgiveness – Fr. Russell A. Bergman

The spirit of forgiveness lives within us through God’s gratuitous grace and flows from our hearts each time we pardon generously.

Generosity Beyond Measure- Bob Hurd

“The last will be first and the first will be last” ends this passage. If you think this means winners and losers trade places, you would be wrong. The grumblers got it right: “You have made them equal to us.” In God’s kingdom, an equality beyond our normal human reckoning prevails. At day’s end, everyone gets to drink equally from life-giving streams.

Just assume the answer to every question is compassion. -Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ

I find myself moving pretty quickly through life these days and so I cherished a quiet hour on the couch last night. An empty house is a rare occurrence and so I took full advantage. I read for a while and took some time to journal. I recalled with gratitude the 6 mile bike ride that Brigid and I took on Sunday afternoon at nearby beautiful reservoir. God is good!

This week’s resources reflect both my appreciation for nature and my love of music. I have been listening quite a bit to recently deceased Irish musician Glen Hansard. I recommend the first five minutes of the YouTube link of Glen playing with Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, along with this touching tribute by U2’s Bono. May Glen rest in peace.

Blessings on your week ahead!

My advice is: Go outside..enjoy nature and the sunshine, and tru to recapture the happiness in yourself and in God. Think of all the beauty that is still left in you and around you and be happy. -Anne Frank

We make no wonder of the rising and the setting of the sun which we see every day; and yet there is nothing in the universe more beautiful or more worthy of wonder. -Gerald of Wales, The History and Topography of Ireland

I’m in the hearts and minds business. I change people one at a time. – Bruce Springsteen

Recently I read Every Brain Needs Music, and I loved this definition of the role of an “accompanist.” In church, I view this person frequently as the one on the keys, and in my own guitar playing, it’s the role I am most comfortable with compared to that of lead guitar….one of support, alongside those who lead in a choir, band, or musical performance. I often find myself in a similar role professionally, accompanying my colleagues and school leaders. And I strive to be this type of presence at home, too, for Brigid and our teenagers.

Enjoy these quotes along with a beautiful rendition of a Smashing Pumpkins song performed by Olivia Rodrigo with the band at their recent Lollapalooza show. Note how lead singer and guitarist Billy Corgan plays the accompanist role in his support of Olivia, it’s beautiful. Blessings on your week ahead!

“An accompanist doesn’t play every instrument in the orchestra. They stay present, listen carefully, and contribute their own part without trying to become the whole performance.” –Every Brain Needs Music

“In normal life, when you’re accompanying someone, you’re signing on to another person’s plan. We’re most familiar with the concept of accompaniment in the world of music. The pianist accompanies the singer. They are partners, making something together, but the accompanist is in the supportive role, subtly working to embellish the beauty of the song and help the singer shine. The accompanist is sensitive to what the singer is doing, begins to get a feel for the experience she is trying to create.”

-David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen