My eldest daughter did not expect to find a shark buried in the sand.

She was, after all, only looking for seashells — a pastime she’d quite nearly perfected after several days spent on the Florida coast. Shells come in all shapes and sizes, all sorts of colors, and buried at a variety of sandy depths; how was she to know that this shell was not at all what it seemed, that it was, rather, the husk of a dangerous creature, dead and decaying?

At any rate, the screams were hard to miss.

We came running, my wife and I, stumbling over dunes and clumps of seaweed in our haste to discern what the source of such panic could be.

“A shark!” our daughter yelled. “I thought it was a shell, but it’s a shark!”

My sister-in-law was already there, comforting our eldest; our youngest was sitting wide-eyed to the side, shocked into rare silence by what they’d discovered.

And indeed, there sat the shark, too — or, what remained of it. We could just make it out now that its top fin had been so unintentionally disturbed. The shape of the creature was roughly defined beneath the sand, discernible now that we knew to look for it, but no more fish-shaped than what might come in a basket at a bar accompanied by chips.

For a fuller image, we’d have to dig.

“Someone must have buried it,” my wife said. “It got washed up here and died.”

“Or was dead and then washed up.”

“Either way, someone tried to hide it so that—”

“So that this didn’t happen,” I finished, gesturing to our definitively freaked-out children.

â€Áčľ±˛µłółŮ.”

“What should we do with it?”

Well, the answer was obvious: We had to unbury it. We had to see the thing in its fullness. We had to understand what sort of shark we were dealing with, how intact it still was. We had to know.

More importantly, we couldn’t just leave it there, destined to be stumbled upon by the next seashell hunting eight-year-old.

The shock of the moment had passed; we were all in agreement on what must be done. Our daughter stood next to the thing, smiled for a picture to prove she’d actually and accidentally unearthed a beast of the deep. And once we’d inspected the shark, we knew what had to happen next.

“I guess I’ll throw it back into the ocean,” I said.

“You’re going to touch it?”

“We can’t leave it here.” And so, in it went, washed out to sea, laid to rest, if in a less-than-poetic way.

I return again and again to that initial revelation, to my daughter thinking she had found a shell only to unveil the hardened fin of a dead sea creature. A terrible thing to stumble upon, and yet, a thing that refused to be ignored. Once we knew it was there, we had to dig in; we had to know more.

We had to see fully what was buried beneath our feet.

I wonder if we stumbled upon any dead and decaying sharks during our Lenten pilgrimage. I wonder if, in praying, fasting and giving alms, we grabbed hold of some deeper truth about ourselves and our place in the world, a truth that was perhaps shocking and yet demands to be addressed.

I wonder if during this Easter season, in the light of the risen Christ, we might do the necessary inner archaeological work of our spiritual lives. Did we discover something that demands further excavation? Is there an insight that was laying right there at our feet all the while, that demands to be fully revealed, held up and inspected?

Once we know the shark sits at our feet, we cannot go on ignoring it.

And what’s more, we need not let it consume our lives. If our Lenten journey brought up something uncomfortable, fine. Good! Look at it clearly, bring it before God and then toss it in the ocean. Let us not become ensnared by the dead sharks of our spiritual lives. Let us cast ourselves into the vastness of God’s love.

After all, the beach contains more beautiful shells for us to find.

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The cave is a crucial motif in spiritual traditions the world over. We enter the cave burdened by who we think we are and how we believe ourselves to be limited; we leave the cave necessarily changed. The cave is a pressure cooker moment in our spiritual lives.

The story of St. Ignatius of Loyola, of course, provides an illustrative example. Ignatius finds himself in the cave near Manresa, grappling with who he thinks God has called him to be. I can’t do it, he says to himself. I can’t live the life of holiness to which God has beckoned me.

Of course, it’s not God he’s wrestling with; it’s the false spirit. Ignatius is confronted by a mischievous voice that insists on the inevitability of failure. It is the false spirit — the enemy of our human nature — that claims that Ignatius will fall short. It is the false spirit that insists that Ignatius’ life is not worth living, that his experience of God has been a lie.

Ignatius enters the cave thinking God wants nothing short of perfection; he leaves the cave knowing God simply wants him — as he is, and yet irrevocably transformed by his acceptance of that simple truth.

The cave, we see, is not about discovering something new; the cave is about recognizing what has been there all along — and then acting for the good from this newfound understanding.

God delights in us — that’s the simple, constant truth — but embracing that truth takes work, takes time, takes trust.

The story of Easter gives us a cave — and an empty one at that! But who goes into that cave? And with what are they burdened?

In the Easter story we heard this past Sunday, it was the disciples who entered the cave. The stone has been rolled away, and things are not as they seem.

What did Peter expect to see in that cave? The body of his friend Jesus, dead for three days now. Peter expected to see in that still and silent body the death of his own hopes and dreams, the death of who he thought God was calling him to be.

But the body was gone; Jesus was not there. And Peter leaves the cave with hope that seemed all but impossible — even foolish — mere moments before.

We are all invited to pray with this scene, to put ourselves in the sandals of those early disciples. When we come to the cave, what do we expect? Do we beleaguer ourselves with assumptions about who we are and who we must ultimately be? When we see the cave empty and the burial clothes pushed to the side, what happens within us? Does the risen Christ transform us in that moment? Do we step out of the cave with a gaze set upon a new horizon?

I’m struck in the story by the focus on the simple, ordinary accoutrements of burial: “he went into the tomb and saw the burial clothes there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.” (Jn 20:6-7) The disturbance of these items is somehow important to the story.

I’ll offer this: Throughout Lent and our , we reflected on the ordinary items, tasks and experiences that populate our days. We saw profound beauty in these places, both mundane and miraculous. I can’t help but wonder: How would “In Praise Of Burial Clothes and an Empty Tomb” play out? Would we see in the disturbance of the wrappings the hand of God gently at work? In these necessary and obvious components of any burial, do we suddenly see the Spirit inviting us to look beyond, to look deeper, to look with new eyes at an event we think we so readily understand?

Perhaps. And perhaps as you go through your day today, tomorrow, next week, you’ll think of the caves into which you necessarily step, the transformative impact they have on the person that eventually emerges. Perhaps, too, you’ll consider those simple wrappings, the details that seems arbitrary and yet aren’t, the ones that say, Yes, even here, even in the specificity of burial wrappings that are not where they belong, God’s Spirit beckons.  

Happy Easter!

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Here’s a fun lawyer joke: Why does New Jersey have so many toxic waste dumps and Washington, DC have so many lawyers? Because New Jersey got the first pick.

The stereotype about dishonest, soulless, ambulance-chasing lawyers who put their own wallets ahead of the needs of their clients might have some basis in reality. But the legal profession can be a great way to promote justice and work for the common good.

This episode’s guest is one of these sorts of lawyers who has dedicated his whole career to making the world a more just place. Kevin Walsh is the former acting state comptroller for the state of New Jersey. In that role, to which he was appointed by Governor Phil Murphy, Kevin’s job was to lead a team that investigated fraud and abuse within government systems and government-funded programs. Before that job, Kevin led a public interest nonprofit that fought for the construction of more affordable housing in the state. And while doing that job, he was one of the lawyers who spearheaded the successful movement to get rid of the death penalty in New Jersey.

Kevin’s Jesuit connection is that he is a proud alumnus of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. After his first year of law school, he took a year off to serve with JVC in Richmond, Virginia, where he worked as a volunteer with legal aid. His experience that year set him on his path of using a legal career for public service, work he’s now been at for more than a quarter century.

Host Mike Jordan Laskey first met Kevin when Mike worked for the Diocese of Camden in southern New Jersey, where Kevin served on the board of the local Catholic Charities agency and on a bunch of other committees. And as Kevin just finished his term working as a state government watchdog, Mike wanted to ask him about the experience and if fraud and corruption in government are as bad as they sometimes seem. Mike also asked him to reflect on the other good fights he’s been part of as an attorney. Kevin’s doggedness and total commitment to using the law for the public interest are hugely inspiring, and we think you’ll notice his passion and energy come through clearly throughout the interview.

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

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My wife and I spent months preparing for our recent trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. We circled hotspots, bookmarked ticketed attractions and initiated a deep dive on guided excursions.

Halfway through making arrangements, something shifted.

Our new plan unfolded upon arrival, in a display of — I have to say — unremarkable glory. By night we read books in bed. By day we set out walking. We skipped a lot of five-star restaurants in favor of string cheese and apples. We visited ruins. We sat in empty cathedrals. We took a train to the countryside. We traded itinerary for itinerancy. It felt like we had been given permission, but for what? This wasn’t a vacation defined by novelty or achievement or checked boxes. It was addition by subtraction. We couldn’t have been happier.

Quiet travel isn’t a retail brand or a single movement. It is an emerging pattern across the tourism, vacation and wellness industries. We are deliberately choosing trips defined by less stimulation, less narration and fewer demands to, well, do a bunch of stuff.

Over last several years, The New York Times has reported on travelers seeking “low-density destinations,” “unplugged retreats” and “travel without itineraries.” Recent Guardian pieces have explored our cultural loss of unstructured time and our magnetism toward things like digital detox retreats, cabins and locales with (gasp) limited Wi-Fi. Industry reports from Airbnb and Skift show rising demand for remote, nature-based stays where silence, slowness and minimal programming are framed not as inconveniences but as features.

Quiet travel isn’t escape from. It is reentry into. Reentry into our own interior lives. Reentry into relationship with place and journey rather than consumption of it.

This trend is rarely marketed as spiritual. It’s framed as restorative, grounding and feeling “human again.” But that language suggests something going on which is deeper than lifestyle preference. In a culture of constant input and expectation, it’s easy to mistake busyness for direction. Quiet travel may be a way of recovering something Ignatius of Loyola understood well — that clarity doesn’t come from more information, but from the space to notice what is already stirring within us.

Never mind the polarizing politics and culture wars of the moment. We live inside a narrated world of feeds, captions, summaries and reviews. We need screens to get anything done. Even our travel experiences arrive pre-packaged, pre-arranged, pre-interpreted. Travel itself has become strangely performative: optimized itineraries, built-in expectations, photos taken with an audience already in mind (itching to be liked, shared, affirmed). Are we trying to prove to ourselves that we have interesting, meaningful lives? Why does the pursuit of pleasure feel like so much work? Quiet travel seems to resist all of that, first and foremost by paying attention to questions like these.

Ignatius understood something essential about attention. The Spiritual Exercises are built on the conviction that God is already present and active. The task is not to manufacture meaning, but to notice it. In Ignatian spirituality, discernment depends on interior space. You cannot listen for subtle movements of consolation and desolation while constantly being pre-approved, info-dumped, sold to or e-prompted.

Quiet travel isn’t escape from. It is reentry into. Reentry into our own interior lives. Reentry into relationship with place and journey rather than consumption of it. Discovery isn’t a prescriptive experience. You can’t make a reservation for the unexpected. Ignatius taught that consolation often comes quietly, without spectacle. When the noise drops, something becomes audible — not comfort per se, but truth. Silence doesn’t promise bliss, but it does reveal what is already moving inside us.

I recently attended an Ignatian summer retreat. Some participants came out of the opening session visibly anxious, having not realized that silence, by design, was central to the retreat experience. Yet once they consented to it — once the pressure to converse, perform or fill space lifted — something softened in them, and something bonded us all together. Meals became reverent. Walks became meditative. Art and journaling surfaced without instruction. Silence created room, and that room filled itself with meaning that might have otherwise been missed or held at bay — joy, tears, new questions. In the end, no one was sorry for the chance. In many cases, the experience was transformative.

The same dynamic appears in quieter forms of travel. Reduced stimulation doesn’t anesthetize us; it sensitizes us. Neuroscience supports the intuition. Studies frequently cited by the National Institutes of Health and Harvard Medical School suggest that silence activates regions of the brain associated with self-reflection, memory consolidation and emotional regulation. Less input allows for deeper integration. Ignatius would not be surprised.

Still, quiet travel also reveals discomfort. When the distractions fall away, restlessness can surface. I don’t know about you, but when the electricity goes out in our house, first everybody groans. The TV is off, rooms are plunged into darkness, appliances are unavailable. But often, new shared experiences emerge when we surrender to the reality — like reading by candlelight or playing card games. In Ignatian terms, restlessness tells us something about what has been neglected, avoided or overfed in our ordinary lives. Perhaps this is why quiet travel resonates so deeply right now. It names a hunger that many already feel. Not for luxury or asceticism, but for presence.

The rise of quiet travel is not just a trend. It is a signal. A cultural instinct brushing up against an ancient spiritual truth: that meaning does not always need to be chased.

During the pandemic, I discovered something similar. Freed from the internalized pressure to leave the house — to attend, to consume, to keep pace — I realized how much pleasure there was in staying in. Not laziness, but reflective space. Time to think, write, listen and rest without guilt, and without interruption. There was no fear of missing out because no one was going out. What emerged in the long run was a clearer sense of who I was and what I actually needed. What would it mean to design pockets of quiet into our days? To let experiences arrive without immediately interpreting or sharing them? Quiet travel externalizes that sort of discovery. It gives us permission, temporarily, to live as though attention matters more than accumulation.

The rise of quiet travel is not just a trend. It is a signal. A cultural instinct brushing up against an ancient spiritual truth: that meaning does not always need to be chased. Sometimes it just needs room to emerge. Ignatius trusted that if we learn how to pay attention — really pay attention — God will meet us there. Quiet travel reminds us that we already know this. Maybe we are finally trying to listen.

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It can feel a bit jarring: The 40 days of Lent suddenly give way to the joy of Easter. The seeds of our prayer, fasting and almsgiving burst into bloom, and we stand in wonder at the Risen Christ. God triumphs over death. And yet, for so many of us, the sacrifices and challenges of Lent seem to march on, interminable. Easter Sunday feels like one more day, just the same as the last. But it’s not. Our God of surprises beckons us forward, invites us to step into something new. And jarring as it may feel, in this seemingly hidden juxtaposition between fasting and flourishing, almsgiving and Alleluia, the Spirit is still at work, still creating something new — even if we cannot yet see it.

We invite you to use these Ignatian resources on your Easter journey.

An Easter Prayer

By Cameron Bellm

When Lazarus stepped out of the tomb,
He was still wrapped in burial cloths—
“Unbind him,” Jesus said, “and let him go.”
What bewilderment Peter and John must have felt, then,
When they saw the linen shroud of the Lord left behind.
This was no resurrection, not as they knew it.
In that year and in this one, Jesus must have known
That we need our sorrow affirmed and embraced
Before we can enter into the possibility of hope.
He left that cloth there for us, I imagine,
To assure us that the Good Friday grief is real,
And the Easter joy therefore all the greater—
Christ unbound, so that we may also be free.
Amen.

“In Praise Of” Ebook

The 34 reflections by our Jesuit Media Lab writers in our Lenten series “In Praise Of: Ignatian Letters of Recommendation for the Spiritual” speak to every season. That’s why we’ve compiled the essays and art into an ebook that you can download — or order a paperback — and return to them anytime you like.

Inspired by the Jesuit quest to find God in all things, “In Praise Of” is a celebration of the normal, grace-filled stuff that makes up a life. And the book is also an invitation for readers to notice and give thanks for the little things of underappreciated value in their own lives.

Easter Season Zoom Theatre Retreat

Celebrate the Easter season and prepare for Pentecost with a Jesuit Media Lab Zoom theatre retreat on Tom Stoppard’s 1993 classic “Arcadia.”

Over two nights, gather with other Jesuit Media Lab fans to perform “Arcadia,” a play that explores time, death and renewal. Stoppard layers past and present in the same space, suggesting that what seems lost is never entirely gone — echoing resurrection themes.

A Jesuit’s Easter Playlist

By Nate Cortas, SJ

From one Sunday to the next in Lent, we hear stories of Jesus encountering people in seemingly impossible situations, people who have all but given up hope. We meet the Pharisees all too eager to condemn Jesus even as he heals, the woman at the well alone and thirsty, the mourners outside Lazarus’ sealed tomb.

It can be easy to look at ourselves, our neighborhoods, or our world and feel the same sense of heavy dread — we know our own capacity for condemnation, for isolation, for hopelessness all too well. But over and over again, in the Gospels and in our lives, Jesus reminds us that he is doing something new. Incredibly, God heals our brokenness, pours out living water, calls us forth from our tombs, and rolls away the stone on the third day.

At Easter we celebrate how God works in all these strange and delightful ways — ways worth our best singing and shouting, grooving and getting down. Here are a few tracks to enjoy in the long, joyful season to come.

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This is the second episode in our little two-part miniseries featuring Catholic scientists. Be sure to check out last week’s conversation with Deacon Matthew Pinson, SJ, who has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from MIT.

Today’s guest is , a professor of chemistry at Bryn Mawr College outside Philadelphia. In addition to being one of the 1000 most-cited chemists in academic literature, Michelle for a broad audience. She also serves as an adjunct scholar at the Vatican Observatory, where she has worked with Jesuit astronomers like Brother Guy Consolmagno. (She actually worked with Br. Guy on an highlighting various Catholic scientists through the ages.)

Host Mike Jordan Laskey asked Michelle about how faith and science go together for her and how she responds to popular arguments about how faith and science are totally incompatible. Mike also asked her about wonder and awe in science, and they talked a bit about the book she . You’ll learn once and for all on this episode if those fancy pyramid-shaped tea bags are worth it. We’re sure you’ll love Michelle’s perspective and depth of insight.

The post Chemistry Is a Long, Loving Look at the Real with Michelle Francl appeared first on ĂŰĚŇĘÓƵ.org.

When I was 16 years old, I scored what I then thought was the best job I might ever have: ice cream scooper at a family-run parlor in my hometown.

Clad in a denim apron, emblazoned with the shop’s logo, I set to work learning the ins and outs of the ice cream business. I learned how to polish stainless steel hot fudge dispensers so that they sparkled and just the right way to hand off a sprinkled cone so that even the toughest customer revealed a smile. I also discovered that I talk to myself.

As I buzzed about the parlor on a busy Friday night, I felt the hum of electric ice cream energy flow through me. Feeling good about myself as I closed up the shop with one of the owners — an intimidating father of two who was well over six feet tall and who my teenaged-self imagined all the taller — I deflated as he turned to me and remarked, “You know, you talk to yourself.”

I did not, in fact, realize this. Feeling my face turn the color of cherry cone dip, I reviewed the evening in my head. Suddenly I heard my inner dialogue spring forth. I had, indeed, been repeating the orders out loud to keep track of them.

Ashamed and a little embarrassed, I played it off as totally normal and not a sign that I wasn’t fit for the job.

Years later, having expanded my horizons beyond ice cream retail, I bristled when a therapist suggested that it might be helpful to talk aloud to myself as I worked through particularly vexing interactions with a coworker. Despite my hesitancy, I found myself during my commute home one afternoon, spontaneously telling myself the story of an encounter.

The first few sentences felt silly (who was this crazy woman jabbering on alone in her car), but soon I discovered I had something to say. To myself, I spoke assurances and also named my own culpability. As I kept talking, another voice soon entered the dialogue: God.

That voice, even though it held my own timbre, spoke differently — with confidence and care I might not otherwise offer myself. It made me laugh. It cut to the heart of things — at times racing beyond the spoken word and into silence. No matter. I could hear it still.

I knew this voice and this voice knew me. It pressed me onward, to hear what I was thinking and feeling.

Sure, I was talking to myself, but there was something new and lifegiving in these dialogues. What began as a therapeutic practice, soon developed into a prayer practice. My own voice became a companion. Hearing myself speak, I could untangle my false self from my true self; I could recognize patterns of behavior, literally giving voice to events and deciphering what was real and what was simply in my head.

Talking to myself wasn’t crazy or self-centered, it was liberating. When I felt drawn to speak aloud, I found God was there. The inspiration was of God. Together, we listened.

Now when I talk to myself in prayer (or on the drive home), I’m less embarrassed by the whole endeavor. The act is an invitation to attention, as sweet as any sundae and meant to be savored as such. Breaking through the silence, I hear my voice as beloved, one with the One who has called me to speak the truth loud and clear.

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With this episode, we’re starting a two-week miniseries featuring Catholic scientists. Today, our guest is with Deacon Matthew Pinson, SJ. Matthew is studying theology at Boston College as part of his Jesuit formation, but it’s the not the first time he has gone to school in the greater Boston area. Matthew has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from MIT, which he earned before entering the Society of Jesus. Originally from Australia and a member of the Australian province of the ĂŰĚŇĘÓƵ, host Mike Jordan Laskey asked Matthew to share a bit about his life journey and how faith and science live in harmony for him.

And be sure to tune in next week for Mike’s conversation with a Catholic chemist who told him something about water he’ll be telling everyone in his life over the next month.

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

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“When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are, anything your heart desires will come to you.”

I would wager a safe bet that those opening words were not just read but rather instinctively sung in your head. This Disney tune has unwittingly shaped our understanding of stars and desire for generations. As I approach the young, but not SO young age of 40, I’ve found that the childhood notion of wishing or desiring simply isn’t enough. In adulthood we encounter not just desire but the process of discernment. Asking ourselves what we actually want is no easy task, and it is most effectively done in the company of God and others.

At the outset of prayer, Ignatius encourages us to name our desire. My early education was often focused on using the etymology of words to help better understand the meaning of any given text. That word desire is derived from the Latin phrase “de sidere” meaning literally “from the stars.” I don’t know if this was in mind when the famous tune was composed for Disney, but the origin of the phrase and the contained meaning of that word desire have been impossible for me to ignore ever since I learned of it.

When I reflect on my life thus far and how discernment played a path in its trajectory, I come across the peaks and valleys that are the hallmarks of most of us who do a thorough examination of their life. My childhood fascination with all things maritime, although cultivated with summer trips “down the shore” in Southern New Jersey and family members serving in the U.S. Navy, was instinctive. The oceans and the ships that sailed on them were fascinating on their own and instilled an attraction that was impossible to ignore. There was an indescribable feeling of peace and belonging for me that derived from the water’s elemental and historical significance. I never really considered that it could hold a career path other than military service, so when I decide on where to go for college and what to major in, life on the water was no longer a realistic piece of my discernment process.

Yet in my moments of leisure there was always this desire to absorb books, documentaries, movies and other media that were set on ships and the sea. Shrugging the subject off as a novelty, I threw myself into studying history, hoping to one day become an archaeologist like my childhood mythic hero Indiana Jones. In hindsight it should serve as no surprise that dissatisfaction in my initial postcollege job led me into a renewed discernment process spurred on by a friend posing me this simple discernment question: “You seem so unhappy. If you could do anything in your life without limitations, what would it be?” Such a simple but direct question generated my instinctive desire: “I would work on the water.” This “cannonball moment” led me to volunteering on a museum ship, to a job as a deckhand on a tugboat, on to maritime college, and then to over a decade as a professional mariner working as a captain and pilot.

In my maritime career, I oftentimes had to shed any romantic notion of the stars to see them as purely a means for navigation. Without belaboring the explanation, I’m sure you’ve all seen films and TV shows set at sea where a sea captain is using a funny looking instrument called a sextant to look at the stars or the sun to find the position of his ship. What you don’t see in those scenes are the incredible labor-intensive calculations that are required to figure out what those measurements actually translate into on a nautical chart. As someone for whom math was never a strong skill, the involved calculations made celestial navigation class a living nightmare. At the end of every measurement and calculation there was yet another until you reached port. Even then, the planning began for the next voyage’s navigation challenges. In hindsight, that class, like my life to that point, metaphorically reflected a simple concept, but one that is most challenging: Life and discerning our purpose within is not only difficult, but ongoing.

What I truly want in my life has been a question that I’ve been struggling with in recent weeks. My well-discerned and satisfying career ran afoul of medical complications from an accident that brought my life as a mariner to a screeching and unexpected halt. Venturing forth onto the job market again, with all its structural uncertainties aside, means re-discerning a path forward. In my Ignatian training to date, I hadn’t adequately prepared myself for reevaluating something I had taken a lifetime to figure out. Attempting to discern how such a life translates into a new career, I am left not only with the question of what do I want to do with my life, but walking hand in hand the two questions of: What do I need to do to support my family? And What can I do at my age, stage and with my education? Not quite as simple as “anything your heart desires.”

Since I can once again look up to stars for their beauty and not with any hint of maritime navigational purpose, I wonder again what they are telling me. I’m left thinking about — if the stars are the language metaphor for where our desires come from — how much they vary in size, shape and scope. Moreover, the sheer volume of stars and how seemingly inconsequential any of us are is a very humbling exercise to say the least. When put alongside the vastness of the universe, the problems of my questions can seem very small indeed, causing me to remember the words of Christ telling me not to worry so much as it’s all in God’s hands (Luke 12).

If I were to think about my whole life as a metaphorical ship at sea and not the actual ones I’ve worked on, I’m in the midst of a major course correction. Discernment is a constant challenge, and one that takes constant adjustment, measurement and calculation — the same as the work of any maritime cadet learning navigation. Yet the stars, with all their variety, also mirror the varieties of human stars that can guide us in that decision-making. Longtime friends and family shine brightest in their luminescence of insight, able to reflect back my own skills and talents in ways I wouldn’t readily notice. What the stars of my life tell me, not unlike the actual ones I would look to for either navigation or beauty, is that the darkest night of uncertainty is never without the light of their guidance. In the emptiness of the ocean, the stars can guide, but only if you’re willing to do the heavy work of calculating their meaning. Of course, behind all these stars exists the one true unseen light. It is he who illuminates the hearts of those mortals that love and guide us into the safest harbor of them all — no matter the route we take.

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I never feel so rich as I do when I walk out of the library with a tall stack of books. Even though I visit multiple times a week, each time I pass through the doors, I still think, “Really?! You’re just going to let me walk out of here with all of these treasures?”

My wonder is born of the sheer improbability of this most generous of all public institutions, a place that exists solely to provide information and opportunities for learning and growth. For free! The library is a wild and wonderful rarity, perhaps even a miracle: It isn’t often that we humans land upon an agreement to share our resources rather than hoard them. By taking part in the library system, we have an opportunity to live into what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls the gift economy, a system in which we keep our rich resources in ongoing circulation.

The library calls us to our highest selves by awakening in us not only generosity, but also curiosity. When I feel stuck, creatively or even spiritually, the library is the place I go to break through my blocks. That’s because the library stirs me to ask questions, to wonder what I might learn, or from what new vistas I might view my own work and my own life. The library is a tried-and-true stepping stone into new ways of approaching my spiritual growth; I never know what bit of wisdom I’ll pick up there that will shine a new light on my inner chapel.

The library also offers us an alternative to the grinding wheels of a capitalist economy built upon the premise of scarcity. It ushers us into an abundance I can only describe as sacred: the abundance of human creative expression. Every book on the shelf was brought into being through the dedicated and deeply human partnership of an author’s mind and body. Every book on the shelf would not exist if not for this specific person’s vision and hard work. Every book encourages me to take my place in the long chain of human creativity, to make the things that only I can make.

So frequently are we trapped in our digital silos that we need the library’s tangible and physical reminder of the wild abundance of the world around us, far beyond our doorsteps, stretching into places we may never see but can still visit through the work of others. Every time I visit the library I feel like I’m stepping into a palace of possibility, entering a conversation that began long before me and will continue long after I’m gone.

In truth, the library means so much to me that I found myself struggling to express the warm sense of benevolence that envelops me every time I peruse the stacks. And then I read Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation “Dilexi te,” in which he addresses the gift and necessity of education. Speaking of the liberatory effect of knowledge, he says that children “have a right to knowledge as a fundamental requirement for the recognition of human dignity. … Christian tradition considers knowledge a gift from God and a community responsibility” (72). The same is true for us adults too, isn’t it? And where do we see that banner of community responsibility raised higher than at every branch of the library, infusing our cities with nurturing and goodwill?

The library is a sacred space precisely because it is so human — for it is in the holy space of our highest selves that we touch the divine.

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