The image of “beads on a necklace” has been prominent in my thoughts for over a year now. It is not a new direction or project, but rather a new image to describe the activities that have been integral to Mary’s Ward from its inception on May 13, 2006. Happy Twentieth Birthday, Mary’s Ward! The image first suggested itself when I was reading Journey into Kashmir and Tibet by Swami Abhedananda, whose party stayed during their travels by train, bus, horseback, and foot, at a se

I apologize for the delay in publishing May and June issues of Ascend. The fact is that the actual work of Mary's Ward is superseding the creative description of that work. The situation will be remedied soon! Thanks for your patience!

I was texting with a friend who uses a microphone to create texts. The phrase my friend was saying was "guard rails", but what came across my phone in text was "God reels". As a person who is sensitive to the way God often speaks quite softly through seemingly incoherent promptings, I was delighted with this erroneous phraseology. "God reels" exactly describes the seeings or many times hearings or feelings that later turn out to be signposts along the way of our spiritua

“In the Yoga as in life it is the man [the human] who persists unwearied to the last in the face of every defeat and disillusionment and of all confronting, hostile and contradicting events and powers who conquers in the end and finds his [their] faith justified because to the soul and Shakti [Divine's power imaged as the Universal Mother] in man [the human] nothing is impossible.” Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga , 773 “But outward circumstances are only a cover for the

I finally got the opportunity to visit Mary's House and check on its condition. I had been alerted by a friend that it had been broken into and that things had been "gone through". I also knew that weather would have continued to take its toll. Such sources of chaos were expected. What I did not anticipate, however, was vandalism for no apparent reason other than some incomprehensible desire for destruction. Broken glass everywhere, smashed religious statues, shattered T

We are slowly settling in here in Gorham, Maine. My space, one large room, is divided by curtains into public and private space. The...

Over four years later, many things have changed; a few have not. I am still promoting a community called Mary's Ward. Still a Boho...

Ave Maria! Volunteers are needed for Catholic Worker adventures in Maine: help establish a pandemic-proof house of hospitality comprised...

Ave Maria! Four days ago I was able to stop by Mary's House in Springfield for a brief investigation of its condition, as my family was...

Ave Maria! My granddaughters and I finished the Works of Mercy Summer Challenge. The girls all made models of their .03-acre plot with...

Ave Maria! This summer our cluster of parishes has provided a Summer Challenge in lieu of Vacation Bible School. It is a challenge to...

Ave Maria! Have you ever felt an impulse to do something a little unusual, then second-guessed yourself many times? Whether you end up...

He is risen! Alleluia! Ave Maria! Jesus has risen from the grave and much of the world is quarantined at home. A perplexing time, to...

Ave Maria! For over a decade now I have had the delightful hobby of growing Coix lacryma-jobi (Job's tears or Mary's tears), a corn-like...

Coronavirus is a terrible black cloud over the world. I feel as though I am inside the book A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, in...

Ave Maria! When Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement (CWM), they advocated small artisan groups, guilds,...

Ave Maria! Happy New Year. I wish peace for all in 2020. Despite perils and precarity in all directions, there is joy in the Lord and...

Ave Maria! As we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family today, I am reminded of a phrase that my late husband Peter and I would share...

Ave Maria! Peace has been a theme for me today. I went to sleep thinking about an entrepreneurial venture which may help to fund the...

Ave Maria! After I published the first post of this new blog, a wave of terror washed over me. What if I can't raise the money? What if...