What is “enough”? Is there ever “enough”? Can there be? I’ve been thinking about this word and these questions quite a bit lately and it seems to me, when applied to most (if not all) situations, the answers, respectively, are “nothing” and “no.” There appears to be, deep within the human psyche, a constant unsettled […]

This piece is a revised version of “Envisioning bold solutions for ending war” originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on January 12, 2020. What if there was a way, or several, to envision ending the war mentality that costs us so many lives, so much suffering and so much money? Many will say ending […]

Elders of many First Nations still maintain their lineage of understanding the ebbs and flows of the natural world and the interconnected web of all living creatures. This time of climate urgency calls us to respect and relearn the deep rhythms that hold all life in balance. Kaurna Elder Uncle Lewis O’Brien shares a saying: […]

As a Catholic, I think two of the seven themes in Catholic Social Teaching, the Life and Dignity of the Human Person and Solidarity, are particularly important when it comes to the way Catholics live out their faith. People will likely characterize the meaning of these themes through their experiences and worldview. This is understandable, […]

Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian portrayal of a not-so-future America that has become an “authoritarian, patriarchal, and theocratic regime” called Gilead. More recently, the Netflix series Stranger Things has plot parallels to our current American political and cultural ethos that are both familiar and foreboding. For many of us old enough to remember how things in our […]

Standing underneath a tree in 1994, Yobe state, Nigeria, I watched as Christians ran. I saw cars set ablaze. A short distance from me I witnessed women slow the advance of Islamic fundamentalists by throwing sticks and stones. Men were standing on rubbles guiding people to safety, yet around me was a small puddle of […]