I learn from people. I respect their opinions, try to see both sides, and usually succeed. But recently there was one argument I couldn't reconcile. It came from a woman who ...

Countless rejection letters... I started losing hope, and gaining weight. For several years I had worked as a campus minister at the University of Oregon in Eugene. The college town was the right size and ...

When he was eight, his mother had to go back to work to support her children when an Anglican relative withheld financial support because of her conversion to Catholicism. ...

I stepped on the scale the other day and it read: Please get off of me, you fat bastard! Somehow the scale that used to read around 180 or 190 pounds has recently moved closer toward the ...

I have learned the six magic words that will wake up any high school religion class: "Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute." Every year I get the same strong reaction ...

"There's so many of them," the septuagenarian remarked to a large gathering of us over dinner that night. "With all the people coming here from everywhere, can New York City really ...

It was just a regular day in ...

I'm the Thanksgiving Day Scrooge. I truly think that Thanksgiving is simply a sham, a humbug, if you will. It's a day that makes us all feel a little better about ourselves for thanking God ...

It's not often that a sexy cocktail waitress inspires a Catholic priest to write a book about faith journeys, but such is the case with Fr. Edward Beck's Unlikely Ways Home: ...

Hey, are you like me? You know?screwed? I am one of those poor unfortunate souls born in that ungodly space between Thanksgiving and Martin Luther King Day. Jesus picked a terrible birthday for Himself. If you love ...

Show me a woman who is happy with her looks, and I'll show you a woman who thinks denial?badaboom!?is a river in Egypt. The cosmetic-industrial complex It's true though. We are always seeking the secret formula that ...

Forget Survivor Thailand. One of the most challenging, daunting threats to modern mankind's survival (and our sanity) is The Holidays . Now that they're over, it's time to assess the damage, see where ...

I am standing at my kitchen sink, gazing out the window as the afternoon sun dissolves into the sky. I am supposed to be peeling potatoes for supper ...

Separating life from art can be impossible in some cases; Angels in America is the most painful instance I know. Now that the award-winning Broadway play has ...

My computer died, taking my last article—a tirade on the prevalence of thongs and stilettos in everyday women's wear—with it. The PC that came to dinnerIt's a good thing I've ...

During September and October of 2003 three different NYU students committed suicide, all by jumping from upper floors. Here in Bangalore in November, a fifteen year-old girl killed herself. Most of us probably know someone who's ...

Fluffy polyester snow, a cardboard stable, and plastic people tell me that Christmas is coming. As kids, my sister and I would set out our family manger scene early ...

Gather forty strangers in one house and give them ten days to three weeks to learn music, dance routines, scenes, and monologues for a show open to the public. Is ...

I, along with millions of others signed up for a gym membership last January. I'm also a health and fitness writer , though you'd never know it from the way I whine about that whole "no ...

My Mom, my sister, and I settled in at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Maine, for the annual Chrism Mass. Even half an hour before the start of the mass the church ...