In the fall my son David made the basketball team at Bishop Carroll Catholic High School. Having a son in a high school sport is sort of like going into Witness Protection. I basically left the life that I knew and focused on getting my freshman to and from practice (5:30-7:30 p.m. every single night, even Fridays!). 

It is now mid-March, and I am reengaging with my life, stepping back into my little routines. 

I have missed this space. I have missed you. 

There are some experiences in my life that I'd like to share with you, but they are not ready yet. They are still simmering. So I decided to reach back into my file and share a pivotal experience that happened to me when I still had a lot of young kids in my home.

Grab a cup of tea, move the wrapping paper off of the couch, tell the children to play downstairs and give yourself the gift of time to read these reflections on the birth of Jesus. They were written by the 8th graders at Holy Spirit Catholic School in Goddard, Kansas.  Instead of going deep into the actual events, I asked the students to reflect more deeply on what it would have felt like to be a certain character. I wanted their inner thoughts. Enjoy!

Confession time: for the past six weeks or so I've been thinking about my children and their people, wondering how the onslaught of the internet is going to affect them long-term. We, as a society, are now tied together yet separate—each person scrolling on their phone, taking in life like a cascading waterfall, allowing it to deluge us with fantastic stories of phenomenal weddings, catastrophic events, sweet moments. 

I see the pull of the internet affecting my children and myself. I want more for them, for me, for us. 

Good morning. It is early, the kids are sleeping, and it’s dark outside. I love this time of day when everything is new. I am sitting in my prayer corner, a renovated area of my home (it used to be the bar!), surrounded by books, pictures of my people, my favorite Divine Mercy Image, and Our Lady of Fatima. A fresh cup of coffee is steaming beside me. 

Knowing that I am making time for my personal writing makes me feel warm inside; I’ve been working to mold 12, 13 and 14 year olds into writers; it feels delicious to just sit and write for fun.

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I'm going to jump into the deep because there have been MANY TRAGEDIES HAPPENING for people in my circle in Wichita, Kansas, and I feel the need to address this head-on: What Do You Do When Someone is Hurting?