“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” -Oprah Winfrey

Today I focus on gratitude as we enjoy this Thanksgiving week. I am ready for a break. I pray for peace in our communities and in our world. Blessings on your week ahead!

Prayer for Our Blessings

Lord, you provide for all our needs. You know us and You love us and You invite us to trust only in You. May we be ever grateful for the blessings in our lives. May we recognize gifts and challenges as opportunities to more fully live out Your will for us. Fill our hearts with gratitude, and ignite within us a desire to serve, love and work for all our brothers and sisters to live with justice and peace. May we always be mindful of our connectedness as brothers and sisters in You. Amen.

Hope is not a simple fairy tale wish. -Sr. Lavina D’Souza

The other night my youngest kids were laughing with us and telling stories of their day. I had been playing my guitar until they came into our room, and in the midst of our conversation my daughter ran upstairs to bring in her ukulele. She surprised us by playing a family-favorite tune of ours from the Lion King. In that moment together we all sang along and enjoyed a beautiful moment of harmony through music. Priceless! We first watched a performance of it many years ago as part of the Jimmy Fallon show, and I am happy to share that YouTube link below. Check out Jimmy’s excitement and childlike joy as he sings alongside Billy Joel.

Enjoy this additional reflection on hope, one I found to be very timely when I read it this week. Blessings on your week ahead!

Hope– Sr. Lavina D-Souza

Hope is not a simple fairy tale wish. Hope-filled people whose hope has its roots in fait in the divine have Believing Hope. Their faith in the divine leads them to have faith in themselves and in the process of growth itself. Hope and faith are inseparable companions…Faith is the foundation on which hope rests, nourishes and sustains. Hope affects faith, too. The unremitting, renewing and restoring hope invigorates faith again and again. Hope has the power to overstep the closed walls of suffering, guilt and pain.

Parenting is a daily exercise in letting go. -Elaine Taylor-Klaus

We’re riding the parenting rollercoaster these days and I’m enjoying learning and growing – and stretching myself- along with my kids and my amazing wife. Listening to podcasts, working with some talented educators and other professionals, and tapping into resources from organizations like www.impactparents.com are sustaining us along the way. Google AI generated some summary tips that I share below which I believe are applicable across all aspects of relationships and working with youth. Plus I am pleased to share an inspiring rendition of the spiritual “Total Praise.” Blessings on your week ahead!

Mentorship/Parenting Approaches

  • Evolving support: It means moving from controlling to empowering, supporting your child in developing their own skills and confidence.
  • Building independence: The goal is to create contexts where children can explore, discover their identity, and learn to navigate the world on their own, while still providing structure and routine.
  • Developing resilience: Letting go helps children learn from natural consequences and develop resilience, rather than relying on parents to solve all their problems.
  • Focusing on the long term: It’s a process of shifting your perspective from trying to “fix” immediate problems to supporting your child’s long-term growth. 

There is no courage without vulnerability. -Brené Brown 

Over the weekend I read Strong Ground by Brené Brown, one of my favorites! Her Ted Talk is below, as is a recent podcast I listened to last week, and I also share this poem contained in the book. I highly recommend checking out Brené if you’re not familiar with her research and work regarding leadership. Blessings on your week ahead!


Just Beyond Yourself -David Whyte

Just beyond yourself. It’s where you need to be. Half a step into self-forgetting and the rest restored by what you’ll meet. There is a road always beckoning. When you see the two sides of it closing together at that far horizon and deep in the foundations of your own heart at exactly the same time, that’s how you know it’s the road you have to follow. That’s how you know it’s where you have to go. That’s how you know you have to go. That’s how you know. Just beyond yourself, it’s where you need to be.

There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. -Leonard Cohen

This morning on the drive school my daughter put on a Halloween mix. Typically she acts like a 13 year old going on 18, yet this morning I again experienced the sweetness of her childhood by how excited she was to listen to “The Purple People Eater.” She’s helping me get in the spirit for Halloween, for which I am grateful. I encourage you to take a few minutes listening to it yourself as a fun re-set to wherever you are in your day.

This week I share a few resources from my daily reflection booklet. These quotes are centered on the concept of gratitude, which I find to be increasingly more and more important in my life and needed in our world. Hope you enjoy them, and blessings on your week ahead!

Attitude of Gratitude

Stewardship is about our need to respond with all that we are – and have – in gratitude to God. -E. Jane Rutter

Let go of the fear that holds you back from loving as God loves and being generous as God is generous. May we move beyond fear to diving generosity, too. – Dan Horan

The only meaningful response we can offer to God’s grace is to try to love others as God loves us, to return to others the blessings we have received….there’s a lot of work to do to realize the Kingdom of God in our time and place. Lets’s be grateful for what we can contribute to bringing that kingdom about. -Jay Cormier

Have the courage to let your heart be broken…to feel..to fall in love. -Dean Brackley, SJ

Yesterday at church my daughter initiated a game at the time of the sermon that we used to play many years ago…she held my hand and this time strategically removed my wedding ring within seconds, so she could distract herself by fidgeting with it. This game used to last nearly five minutes! Time flies.

This week I share a couple nuggets of wisdom that help ground me these busy weeks in the blur of life. I’ve been flying around a bit lately and I’m reminded of a flight a few years ago during which I found myself chatting it up with this talented, female-led Bay Area band, The Rainbow Girls, and their song in the clip below invites us to love and love and keep our love alive, which sounds pretty good to me these days.

Blessings on your week ahead!

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

To live well as a human being is to live in sync with who God is and how God acts. -Miroslav Volf

This week I share the brief poem below as reminder to note and recount the joy-filled moments that Gods graces us with by placing them in our lives on a regular basis. It’s a fast-paced week for me and I appreciate the encouragement to remain aware of God’s holy presence. Blessings on your week ahead!

What is Laughter?

What is laughter? What is laughter?
It is God waking up! O it is God waking up!
It is the sun poking its sweet head out
From behind a cloud
You have been carrying too long,
Veiling your eyes and heart.

It is Light breaking ground for a great Structure
That is your Real body – called Truth.

It is happiness applauding itself and then taking flight
To embrace everyone and everything in this world.

-Persian Poet Hafez

Joy is the wellspring of resistance, the water of life. -Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis

The other night I played guitar on our back deck while my oldest and youngest children played basketball in our backyard. My daughter benefited from her big brother’s sage counsel on the game and on life itself. Our middle child was working at his new job at our neighborhood pizzeria. Time is flying by and I work each day to be as present as possible. I am grateful and blessed. One day at a time!

I hope today’s reflection on the pilgrimage of life reminds us to indeed take it one day at a time. Plus an artist whom I admire released a new album for the first time in a while, so I am pleased to share her recent TV performance below. Blessings on your week ahead!

Everyday Pilgrims

I had a new insight about being a pilgrim in everyday life as like being out walking on a trail. This brings pilgrim attitudes of seeking God and responding well to different situations into daily living. Every day is a new journey; it is an openness to the spirit working in ordinary things in everyday life. Life is the great pilgrim challenge, and relationships are both the challenge and the joy.

—Adapted from The Way to Manresa, Brendan McManus, SJ

When we come from gratitude, we become more present to the wonder of being alive in this amazing world, to the many gifts we receive, to the beauty and mystery it offers. -Joanna Macy 

It’s a rainy day in Denver as I write this morning. I am here with a talented group of school administrators, grateful for their hard work and leadership. Wishing you blessings on your week ahead!

St. Oscar Romero – The Violence of Love

The human progress that Christ wants to promote is that of whole persons

in their transcendent dimension

and their historical dimension,

and their spiritual dimension

and their bodily dimension.

Whole persons must be saved,

persons in their social relationships,

who won’t consider some people more human than others, but will view all as brothers and sisters and give preference to the weakest and neediest.

This is the integral human salvation that the church wants to bring about— a hard mission!

But the church knows what its revolution is:

the revolution of Christ’s love.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. -Maya Angelou

This week I share a couple resources from my reading of Fr. Richard Rohr’s The Tears of Things and listening to one of my go-to’s, NPR’s “Tiny Desk” concert series. This past weekend was the annual Flower Piano festival in San Francisco’s Botanical Gardens. During my son’s baseball game warmups nearby, I was able to walk the beautiful garden grounds and soak in the nature, complemented by the richness of the various pianos available for anyone to play to share their talents with all of us passersby. I love where I live!

Another night this past week my youngest kids broke into a spontaneous re-enactment of Hamilton’s first act and I felt blessed by this live entertainment. I try to notice these spontaneous moments of grace that often abound when I pay close enough attention in nature, or open my heart wide enough to hear all the great music in my life. Blessings on your week ahead!

Grace- Richard Rohr, OFM

Grace is not what we deserve by doing the right things, but rather a gift freely given by the Creator in the very act of creation….Grace is one of those realities that is everywhere once you stop weighing, counting, and deserving. God’s freedom to act freely is already highly visible in nature….Such grace follows no logic (or) explanation.