"Choose a word, no more than two syllables."That was our instruction for doing a session of Centering Prayer.It’s the perfect day for this retreat, in light of last night's horrific attacks in Paris and the beautiful weather.  Plus, it doesn’t seem right to be cheery or chatty or ‘productive’ this morning. I've never visited Paris, … Continue reading Empathique

"It's great that you are helping children recover after they have been trafficked. But what will you do to keep it from happening in the first place?"  I was having lunch this week with a supporter who is very passionate to address the huge issue of child trafficking in India, and we had just started … Continue reading Getting MADD

It was the ragtag collection of broken and discarded mirrors leaning on the walls surrounding us that first captured my heart and imagination. Last Thursday, I had the privilege of spending a half-day visit to World Vision's program in Tijuana. It's been a few years since my last visit, so I was very glad to be … Continue reading Zumba!

Our day began in the small town of Kenmare in County Cork, Ireland. Janet and I were traveling through the region and wanted to make a short visit to an ancient cemetery plot, which had grown up like wild clover around the site of an early monastic settlement dating from the 7th century.It was a … Continue reading The Famine Plot

I read a report from UNICEF that "More women and children have been used as suicide bombers in Northeast Nigeria in the first five months of this year than during the whole of last year" and that one-third of all attacks so far this year have been conducted by children--specifically girls--aged 7-17. UNICEF believes most of … Continue reading Stamps or Stories

Tonight, I watched a moving video. It was less than two minutes long, but in that short glimpse my “practical” side, my hard head, grasped an aspect of "soft-ware" that I hadn't paid much attention to in the past. In World Vision, we talk a lot these days about "software." Having worked in IBM's computer mainframe … Continue reading And On the Sixth Day, They Played

I’m flying home from an encouraging, albeit hectic, trip to Malawi to see World Vision water projects there.  We ended the trip in a lovely setting for some decompression and debriefing along the coastline of Lake Malawi, a ribbon of water that snakes along most of the length of that small nation.  My grandson Sam … Continue reading Looking Beyond the Fence

I went to weekday mass this morning, for the first time in a few years. I'm getting over jetlag from a World Vision trip to Uganda last week, and as I lay in bed in the dark this morning my mind could not help but cling to the darkest portion of our many projects visits. … Continue reading Where We Hang Up Our Lives

One day a couple weeks ago, the top three headlines on the daily news emails from both the NY Times and LA Times were all concerning Ebola, and ominously, the focus of each was on Ebola-related topics here in the USA...who’s actually sick, protection measures, CDC guidelines. It seemed to me then that America’s focus … Continue reading Enough Is Enough

I had a very gratifying dinner with a World Vision supporter last week. Ed and his wife had spent a day at a World Vision project in Ethiopia recently and was telling me about the experience. He said that one of their most meaningful encounters was meeting a group of clergy, consisting of both Christian and … Continue reading Conditional Grace