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I am a white American male with a college degree and a career, and I was blessed to be raised in a loving, Catholic home by parents who valued education, hard work, and faith.
Long associated as a symbol of respite, shelter, and nourishment, an oasis serves as a spiritual metaphor as well as a place of spiritual rejuvenation. With that symbol in mind and energized with the Franciscan spirit, Brother David Buer, OFM, has spent decades working to provide refuge and resources to those in need in the American Southwest.
His path to becoming a Franciscan and living a life of service has roots in a clear understanding of what it means to be an outsider in our society.
We humans tend to compartmentalize just about every aspect of our lives, from what we do in mundane daily rituals to how we engage with entire holy seasons. There’s comfort in routine, to be certain. The cycle of holidays, holy days, and commemorative months provides us with a kind of rhythm in an often offbeat world. This month, for example, we mark the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday on February 26, we celebrate love in all its forms on Valentine’s Day, and we honor the contributions and legacy of African Americans all month long.
By the time you read this column, you might already be burned out on Christmas music, and we’re just now actually getting into the season!
He’s known for his Mafia epics and dark character studies, but Martin Scorsese has a profound spiritual side, as witnessed by a trio of challenging movies about faith.
The word dream is closely connected to our cultural identity as Americans. From the idea of the American Dream to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream ” speech.
Michael Vanderburgh is a people person. A self-described extrovert, he thrives on connection and communication with others, no matter what their backgrounds or particular station in life might be. Case in point: When Vanderburgh sat down with St. Anthony Messenger at a restaurant just outside of Dayton, Ohio, for the first of multiple interviews, he asked the waitress, “So, what’s good here? ” A warm smile formed on his face as the waitress recognized him from the previous week and, smiling herself, replied, “Oh, pretty much everything. “
