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Choosing Your Battles Wisely
Being a parent can be exhausting sometimes. The physical demands of life with littles, combined with the emotional demands of responding to the deeper needs of your children has its challenges — which is why we need to choose our battles wisely. Believe me, if you’re a parent who cares about your children, there will be battles. Kids are naturally going to try to push the limits, at least a little bit, and these are great opportunities to clarify what you value as a family. These moments can help our kids to develop their own moral character. They also force us to examine why we believe what we believe and to own…
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Staying Consistent in a World of Sound Bites
We live in a world of soundbites and scrolling slogans. More than ever before, we need to be a people who think deeply and remain consistent in our approach to the challenges our culture is facing. If we don’t take the time to really examine our own ethics, to develop our morality in a way that is consistent, we’re not going to have the answers we need when the challenges get complicated. Recent events at our nation’s border have really left a lot of people upset by what they are seeing, and for good reason. I don’t know enough about what is happening at the border to offer the solution…
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What’s So Bad About Catholic Guilt? A.K.A. God Doesn’t Want Us to Stay in our Shame
Apparently, Catholic Guilt is a thing — at least, it’s a thing in a lot of circles and as often as I’ve heard it referred to, it always seem to be in a negative light. Perhaps it’s because people tend to confuse guilt with shame, and hence the bad wrap for Catholic guilt — but I’m here to say Catholic guilt can be a good thing — and before you write this post off as cray-cray, please hear me out. In my opinion, guilt is to the soul what pain is to the nervous system — it’s lets us know that somethings is not quite right and we need to change it.…
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How to Deal With Turkeys
I love getting outdoors — with all the fresh air, lovely scents and amazing beauty — honestly, there are few things as restorative as time outdoors surrounded by the beauty one encounters in nature. But anybody who has spent any time outdoors, also has to acknowledge that the rewards of getting outdoors, has mixed in with it the hazards of stinging insects, biting animals, sunburn, dehydration — I could go on, but I won’t. The point is, it’s not always going to be a pleasant experience and I’ve learned to accept that these nuisances serve as great reminders that we’re not in Paradise, yet. I guess you could say I…
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Why It’s Important to Just Be
Two years ago I wrote about a hilarious mishap that happened to our family while taking a hike before sunrise. Sure, the backdrop was Florence, which is pretty extraordinary, but the point of the post was that quality time can happen anywhere — absolutely anywhere — and you don’t need to go off to far off places to make those moments happen. In fact, I think that it’s imperative that you go out of your way to find little family adventures in your own neck of the woods. And these moments don’t require exotic, “insta-worthy” locations or piles of money to make it happen. Any backyard barbecue or fire pit can…
