Writing Bliss Class: Fall 2024-Winter 2025
Recently my friend Lindsay Wolff inquired if I was doing a writing class this fall. Giving it some thought, I decided to offer the following just because I thought it could be (1) a fun …
Tag: Mev Puleo
Saints, Mystics, and the Neighbor Next Door: A Class in Inspiration and Imitation
[T]oday it is not nearly enough to be a saint, but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment, a new saintliness, itself also without precedent.—Simone Weil, Waiting for God For [Dorothy] Day,…
A Question/1
“Can we uncover the contemplative springs that are the source of our humanity?” –Daniel Berrigan, S.J., Ten Commandments for the Long Haul Daniel Berrigan; Maryknoll; NY, summer 1988; photo by Mev
Gratitude/2
For my teacher Marc H. Ellis who gave me apt advice when I nervously started started teaching in 1997: “Don’t worry about what the students give to you. Just give everything you’ve got to your…
Not the Pat Answer
Father Zosima then advises his suppliant, in some of the words that Father Ambrose of Optina Pustyn asked Dostoevsky to convey to Anna Grigoryevna: “Be not comforted. Consolation is not what you need. Weep and…
Remembering Our Beloved Friends and Teachers
Ann Manganaro, 1993 Mev Puleo, 1996 Mark Scheu, 2003 Dan Horkheimer, 2007 John Kavanaugh, 2012 Pete Mosher, 2013 Hedy Epstein, 2016 Ellen Rehg, 2019 Jean Abbott, 2021 Andrew Wimmer, 2024 Andrew with Aldo, photo by…
Mev and Andrew
For Suzanne Renard Mev Puleo died 28 years ago today and, out of the blue, I just remembered something Andrew Wimmer had written about the book I wrote about Mev way back in 2005. Even…
Sitting
The night before I left, one of the patches containing painkiller came off, and Mev was in a lot of pain. She wet the bed twice, vomited once. For some reason, the alarm on the…
A Source of Life
As a young adult entering the Sisters of Loretto at eighteen, somewhat naively, I spent a lot of genuine effort to read and take seriously the Gospel. What has sustained me over the long haul,…
Be In Love with This Life: A Class with Cami Kasmerchak and Mark Chmiel
One September evening, a group of Weston students walked past a disfigured man in a wheel-chair begging outside the school. No one said hello or even acknowledged him, which prompted Gene later to ask aloud…