In 1972, when the Diocese of Evansville first assigned a campus minister to what was then Indiana State University of Evansville, the university had an enrollment of fewer than 1,000 students. What a difference the University of Southern Indiana campus is today. At the beginning of the 2018-2019 ac...
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There is an art and a science to slow living. This summer I’m trying to learn both. In music, you can measure it. The tempo called largo – Italian for slow and broad – clocks in at 40 to 60 beats per minute. (Allegro, by contrast, doubles that pace, while presto races up to 200.)...
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I would like to take a moment to praise summer. How wonderful it is to be home! The late evening sun casts golden light through green leaves and shines through the windows as my family lingers around the dinner table, eating ice cream mixed with Grandma’s hickory nuts, laughing about the sill...
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Last week I participated in Mission Evansville, a wonderful local service retreat hosted by our diocese. It prompted me to consider what actually causes us to act. We often see needs in the community, but we don’t respond – usually because of that fatal preference for convenience. The b...
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On average, in addition to all my work reading, I finish a book a month for enjoyment … well, until my daughter was born—she has limited what I read in the evenings to fictional novels that can be consumed in small cognitive bites. The content, then, obviously is neither nourishing to m...
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We all desire stronger relationships. Strengthening relationships requires good communication, though, which requires expressing ourselves well. This self-expression necessitates mediums beyond just dialogue because other things—such as poetry, song, and dance—reach depths of communicat...
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My husband and I drove by a couple of teenagers holding signs advertising a bake sale. Neither of us could read the signs from our car, and we continued on our way to the gas station less than a hundred yards away. I reached for my phone, thinking I’d look on the internet to see what the bake...
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More than 19 million people tuned in to watch the final episode of “Game of Thrones” May 19, making it the most viewed show to ever air on HBO. Yet many were dissatisfied with what they saw, hurling gripe after grouse online. The finale didn’t fit the ethos of the show, they insis...
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When I arrived at the University of Evansville two years ago and moved into my dorm room, I had no idea what was in store for me.   Before college, I considered myself a good Catholic. I thought that meant going to church and believing; and while those are good parts of faith, I had yet t...
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One significant aspect of being human is being called by name. To continue last week’s exploration of what it means to be human, God calls us by name to indicate his particular love for us (Is 43:1, Jn 10:3). When others use our name, we know we are important to them. Many psychological studi...
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