Dear Peregrinus: Thank you for writing recently and letting me know what you have been learning from the great René Noel Girard (1923-2015) concerning his important thoughts about “atonement.” You wrote to me in October, and now, suddenly, it is November with Pacific Standard Time returning early Sunday morning ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: We have begun a daily reading St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (written in Ephesus in 54 or 55 CE) – sections of which constitute the first Reading each day at our Masses starting yesterday, Monday, and continuing through to Wednesday of next week (not including Sunday). What caught my attention this time, as I refreshed my knowledge about who the Galatians were, is that they were likely a colony of Celts ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: One nice result of my being away this summer for the sake of some hard work on capacity-building is that you – thank you! – graciously received Letters from two people I trust, Tara and Mary, whose souls are good, and who demonstrate a willingness to accept the challenge of genuine depth. I mean by “depth” that location within each of us where God is unceasingly active and powerful “underneath” the cacophonous foolishness that we all, and more often than we should, allow to gain our attention, and to hold it ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: You may not know me, but I have heard so much about you from our mutual friend Fr. Ganz that I feel as if I know you well. I have missed the regular company of Fr. Ganz here at the International Headquarters of the Faber Institute while he has spent the past two months 383 miles northeast of Portland in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Our mutual friend, Fr. Rick Ganz, has journeyed to Coeur d’Alene for the summer to begin composition of his masterwork and to save the souls of wayward Idahoans. In his absence, he proposed that you and I might correspond, continuing the work of friendship that began when we were first introduced. Fr. Ganz is one of the fellow pilgrims I cherish most in this life ...  Read More

Seeing the “far side” of the Moon as it transits the sunlit Earth[1] Dear Peregrinus (Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time):I have been thinking about syzygy.[2] You? No, it was not a New York Times crossword puzzle that compelled my interest in this noun (I don’t do crossword puzzles), but the poetic loveliness of the names given the full Moons of the year by different tribes[3] of the First Nations[4] ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: My goodness it has been some weeks since last we communicated - it was before Lent began on February 14th. My time was taken up with writing the Lenten Meditations each week, which I hope that you read. They are some of my best work. We both have been fully deployed, which is our practice of kenosis ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Happy new year to you, old friend, by which I do not mean from January 1st onwards, but rather according to what our Christian tradition instructs. Our new year, each year, begins with the first Sunday of Advent. Consequently our “new year” happened on 3 December 2017, when we heard read from Mark's Gospel these words: "Be watchful! Be Alert! ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Thank you for writing back to me, and for that quotation you sent from Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina;(written 1875-1877): Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. Though it has been years since I read that novel from that great-souled author, I can remember now what I felt like then. It is not ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus (4:22 PM):Thank you for your letter and for passing along to me the kind words spoken to you about the study trip to Oxford University that Steve (and Thanne) and I led during the last week of August and into the first couple of days of September.Have you ever wondered why “September” (meaning the “seventh” month) is actually the ninth month of the year?[1]September is the month of...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: I imagine that all of us in the Pacific Northwest are praying that the rain that has come today to our region for the first time in almost four months will mark the beginning of Autumn’s confident habit! The incomparable Emily captures well how a dry land marks the preciousness of the individual drops of rain when the rain first arrives after a long absence. A drop fell on the apple tree...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: The high heat in Portland has for the moment expended itself. This means – to speak only about me and my comfort! – that the temperature in my office registers today a temperature less than 80-degrees for the first time in five weeks. My later afternoons each day have been “wilted” ones. I have been thirsty, a lot. For a second she stared here and there, wondering...  Read More