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By Amy Carr

At a recent oblate meeting, one man observed ruefully, “I don’t know who my community is anymore!”

Perhaps he wonders this because it is hard to draw sharp lines around particular communities. At least for me, this observation has become as steady as the soundscape of cicadas in an Illinois summer: that this world is one, across all the places and friendships and family ties in which I have invested. Continue Reading

By Amy Carr

“I want to be the adult in the room.”

Recently I have heard two quite different individuals say this, each time referring to a shared institutional context — albeit from very different standing points in our institution.

Each time it puzzled me. Continue Reading

By Amy Carr

As a Benedictine oblate who is also a lifelong Lutheran, and as a woman who has never borne a child, I have not had any ritually-taught identification with the Virgin Mary. But the iconic image of Mary holding her infant son comes to mind as I ponder a question circulating in my heart’s thoughts of late. Continue Reading

By Amy Carr

After my parents headed back to Upper Michigan two days after Christmas, I sat down and wrote my two page, double-sided annual holiday letter. To actually get all the letters in the mail takes many days of going back and forth between writing a note in a card to a particular person, then doing some other small activity that the rest of my life demands, too. Continue Reading

By Amy Carr

Towards whom are you most drawn to extending hospitality? Do most of us find it hard to love all of our neighbors? Continue Reading

By Amy Carr

Tonight I am drawn to thinking of a Benedictine commitment to “place” in terms of a commitment to the particular nation to which I belong. . . . Continue Reading

By Amy Carr

Who has learned to live by Jesus’ teaching, “Do not worry?”

Jesus had listened deeply to fellow human beings to be drawn to say this — alongside the familiar Jewish commandments about loving neighbor, practicing justice, forgiving and showing mercy. Continue Reading