Does anything speak of hope better than an 11-year-old from an infamous ZIP code making plans for the fall harvest?Read More

A couple weeks ago we sent away for five caterpillars. When they arrived, they were tiny, moving around inside their plastic cup and not doing much else.They grew...and grew.Then on Friday the first two climbed to the lid of the cup and became chrysalides.As I understand it, and biology isRead More

Today I was vacuuming the living room—an event so rare  it would probably have deserved its own blog—when I heard our younger son come up behind me.“Mama,” he yelled over the roar of the vacuum. “I cut my hair!”I turned around and looked at his jagged bangs.“What? I said. “You’reRead More

When you travel to China to adopt your children, you start eating in restaurants with them right away. Unless you want to live off of ramen noodles in your hotel room, you don’t have another choice.Maybe that’s why, even though we have had moments of poor restaurant behavior, eating outRead More

The Preakness is barely over and there are already whispers about moving the second jewel of the Triple Crown out of Baltimore, possibly to Laurel. Some of these voices were heard on Twitter right after the riots decrying the dangerous neighborhood around Pimlico and how the city was just tooRead More

In 2014, 69 journalists were killed and 221 were imprisoned. In the past five months, 25 journalists have given their lives, with 156 more taken captive.Read More

Archbishop William E. Lori dedicated and blessed a new playground and the basketball court May 26 at Cardinal Shehan School.Read More

Image: encouraging wordsNote: I gave this speech at Mass during our Ministry Weekend at St. Joan of Arc Church in Aberdeen to encourage others to find their God-given gifts and share them with our parish.You can do the same at your parish.---“Our St. Joan of Arc parish motto is “JesusRead More