NSS Blog

Discovering the Divine in the Everyday

Not Strictly Spiritual celebrates 17 years

January 24, 2025 • writing

It was 17 years ago today — on the Feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists — that I launched this blog. (You can read my original blog post from this date in 2008 HERE.) So, happy anniversary to me! And thank you to all of you who have ...

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We all need Sabbath: Why quiet isn’t “quitting”

September 2, 2022 • Life Lines

As I sat in my beach chair late last month, toes in the sand and eyes fixed on an endless horizon that gave me the slightest inkling of eternity, I found for ...

A Tale of Two Cities: Chicago and Milwaukee

August 22, 2022 • Travel

In case you missed it, here's my recent travel story for the Albany Times Union. One weekend, two great American cities: As the lazy days of summer wind ...

Miscarriage: love and loss 24 years later

August 6, 2022 • parenting

My annual tribute to the baby I lost 24 years ago today, the baby I call Grace: For the past few days I’ve been looking at the numbers on the calendar, ...

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Soul Seeing: Light, Love, Forgiveness

November 23, 2018 • Books

A few years ago, I was asked to write an essay for the Soul Seeing column that appears regularly in the National Catholic Reporter. That essay turned into a ...

And after this, our exile…

November 11, 2018 • Life Lines

Although I have had a lifelong struggle with the Rosary—I’ve always considered myself Rosary-challenged—I started praying this prayer more frequently of ...

Hail to the Morning

October 19, 2018 • Give Us This Day

Hail to the Morning There will be something, anguish or elation, that is peculiar to this day alone. I rise from sleep and say: Hail to the morning! Come ...

There’s beauty even in the fading…

October 17, 2018 • Life Lines

I stood in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express in Syracuse one recent Saturday morning before dawn, fumbling with my car keys and coffee cup and ...

Looking for truth at the bottom of the abyss

September 20, 2018 • Life Lines

I didn’t want to go Mass this weekend. In the spirit of full disclosure, I did not go to Mass last weekend. I could not. The current scandal and apparent ...

9/11: Remembering like it was yesterday

September 11, 2018 • Life Lines

Here’s the Life Lines column I wrote 17 years ago, in the days following 9/11. So much has changed since that time. Our world has changed. My family has ...

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Discovering the Divine in the Everyday

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