2+ day, 18+ hour ago   (318+ words) (ANALYSIS) Who do you talk to when you’re struggling? When it feels like you’re carrying the weight of the world and there’s no way out of the mess you’re in — who can you turn to for an honest conversation? I’d…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago   (545+ words) (REVIEW) More and more faith-based films are following the “Elmer Gantry” plot. Based on the 1927 book and remade into the Oscar-nominated 1960 film starring Burt Lancaster, “Elmer Gantry” follows a con artist who becomes a revival preacher and finds enormous success…...

2+ week, 3+ day ago   (719+ words) (TRAVEL) I recently returned from leading an educational program in Thailand focusing on how Buddhists practice the religion in their day-to-day lives. The participants — Buddhist practitioners from North America and Europe — wanted to deepen their understanding and practice of the…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago   (841+ words) (ESSAY) Before a shrine of Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha lay a white Spitz, her lifeless body wrapped in a gold “dharani blanket” covered in Sanskrit and Chinese. To the left, a wall was stocked with Buddhist and Taoist offerings, to be burned....

3+ week, 1+ day ago   (982+ words) About 25 years ago, I wrote two “On Religion” columns examining the Church of Rome’s priest shortage — through the eyes of faithful mothers, with the help of a priest who had led a seminary. The headline: “Fathers, mothers & Catholic sons.” The…...

3+ week, 5+ day ago   (1233+ words) After 11 seasons, PBS’s “Masterpiece Mystery!” series “Grantchester” has come to an end. For more than a decade, viewers returned to the quiet village of Cambridgeshire to watch an unlikely crime-solving duo: Anglican vicars and Det. Inspector George “Geordie” Keating. Between…...