Blog Posts

  • Your Significance Reaches Beyond Your Imagination

    How often do you despair at your apparent insignificance? Between ISIS, Ebola, and the devastation of the world’s climate, what possible difference can we make? Such problems can feel overwhelming and our own meager lives seem so small. Even when we do rise above such feelings of inadequacy, we then might struggle to choose the…

  • Don’t Count Your Success!

    Everyday, we hear about successful people – people who are more beautiful, richer, and happier than ourselves. Our hearts might give a slight squeeze when we compare our lives to theirs. We never seem good enough … But wait! Next to these people full of unattainable wealth, beauty, and happiness are the fallen ones. The…

  • Celebrating and Redeeming Flesh

    I am writing on a warm morning in early autumn. The oak branches are full and alive, corn fields lean with their ripeness, and rabbits graze in the filtered light. As the days grow shorter, I am trying to embrace autumn (and then the long winter) that will soon descend on Northern Europe. To do this,…

  • Soul Harvest – Part 1

    It took me a long time and a good deal of sweat to understand it — just how much our Earth is a sanctuary for our souls. And this awareness evolved only thanks to Signora Giuseppa. Having worked the land for more than seventy years, Giuseppa quietly and wisely guided me towards this realization while…

  • Soul Harvest – Part 2

    What makes gardening such a precise mirror for the soul? There are many biblical parables that invoke the imagery of the garden – the pruning of vines, sowing of seeds, and harvesting of grapes. Taoists believe that miniature gardens are the Earthly copy of Paradise. In Islam the four gardens of Paradise – Soul, Heart,…