Would you read this, and tell me if it's any good?

This is how not to barcode a used book.

Off to the printer. Mailing to subscribers in 2 weeks. #Focolare #peace #unity #placesofconflict #WestBank #clergysexabuse

Suddenly I realize / That if I stepped out of my body I would break / Into blossom. Charles Wright, from “The Blessing” #poems

Illustration by Sibylla von Bondorf, a Poor Clare, for her own 1478 German translation of St. Bonaventure's LIFE AND MIRACLES OF ST. FRANCIS

The look on my face this morning when I read about what happened at the so-called prayer breakfast.

“There are good reasons why so many people love James Martin and his books — because he understands people, and his love for others shines from his pages.” www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews...

St. Francis looks like he's wearing his technicolor dreamcoat as he embraces that leper.

The Newton Interfaith Leaders Association and The Miller Center for Interreligious Leadership of Hebrew College present an opportunity for learning and fellowship for teams of Christian clergy, youth leaders, and lay leaders. For details: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

We need old books. “Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistake of our own period. And that means the old books.” -C.S. Lewis

What I see at work.

This is how my new book on the religious experiences of Francis of Assisi begins. I hope you will ask your local public library to get one for you...

Cultivate that face, and remember. (from 'Meister Eckhart's Book of Darkness and Light')

Morning prayer cat.

This is the heart of Eckhart. From 📚 'Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart'

Remember: pretty much no one read William Blake or John Keats when they were alive. #writers

An old poem I love by Robert Bly. #minnesota #poemsoflove

Fr. Kieran Kavanaugh OCD, the great translator of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila—died on this day in 2019. Pax.

My aim, as an author, is now to write a book that generative AI cannot summarize.

May the Spirit get hold of you today.

“All flourishing is mutual.” Robin Wall Kimmerer

My God is / the one who is desired / by everyone who desires (from "Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart," p195)

I can't find another set of these salt and pepper shakers anywhere.

From our local police log. Thank you, cops. That's the way to do it.

Beautiful late January afternoon showshoe walk today with the pooch.

Old book marker of mine. 1946.

Happy birthday, Fr. Louis. #ThomasMerton (1915-68)

“If you want the kernel you must break the shell.” Meister Eckhart

👇 (i took this photo at Shakespeare & Co., Paris, a few yrs ago)

Sometimes all you manage to accomplish in 2 days is feed a very stealthy mouse some really expensive organic peanut butter.

I found this yesterday in a secondhand copy of a TS Eliot book of poems.

From the former Abbey of Fontenay, France.

May your work have this sort of clarity today.📚🙏 #writinglife

May your pen be inspired. #writers

This little paperback was $.35 in 1957. In today’s money that would be about $3.85. We no longer price books that inexpensively because we can’t count on enough people buying it.

I spend time here a couple times a week at our college library, and I never ever EVER see anyone else in these stacks. There are students who sit and study or read or talk, NEAR these stacks, but they never EVER go in them.

If you have an opportunity, go see it. I did today. Powerful. Can’t believe there were no Academy Award nominations.

This is Northumbrian, 8th century. Before St. Francis of Assisi, Christ was often imagined “trampling beasts.”

While a student at Columbia, and before his conversion to Catholicism, the wildly searching Thomas Merton went to see the Hindu monk and scholar, Brahmachari, and asked for religious text recommendations. Brahmachari said, you should read Augustine's Confessions and The Imitation of Christ.

A man in Belfast was filling out a form for his son's application to private school. The form asked about religion. He checked the box for "non-religious." Then he got a call a few days later, "Excuse me sir, are you 'non-religious Catholic,' or 'non-religious Protestant'?"

"They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him. They shot him so many times…I don’t know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him.” #PrayForAmerica www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I love everything about this book: its battered beauty—in that it was surely read by 1000s of library patrons in Southport, UK over 70+ years; those pages worn and rounded from so many hands; and then of course its contents.

On a Rolle.

That feeling you have in your cell. From Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart, p.119

blueprint to a life

Muhammad Eshaq Rashid, 55, told +972: “I’ve never cried in my life until today... We lived here peacefully for all these years, even with the army nearby. There were no problems. But since the settlers came, everything has changed.” (2/2)

A Buddhist monk with advice for doing better at work. My review at SpiritualityandPractice: www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews...

These are called “dos-à-dos” from the 17th century.

The blizzard wins: I'm no longer going to be at Boston College on Sunday to talk about Francis of Assisi. Postponed to Sunday, March 29...