Essay: Printers Row – A Celebration of Community
Near the end of last Saturday at this year’s Printers Row Lit Fest, an 80-year-old Italian painter from the North Shore told me she’s going to have a huge party [...]
Chicago history: Rediscovering the art of the much-demonized Chicago wheeler-dealer Charles Tyson Yerkes
In the fall of 2003, Sebastian Smee, the art critic of the Daily Telegraph in London, described a mid-19th century painting by British artist J. M. W. Turner as “an [...]
Alone but not isolated — an essay about the seven sacraments
Life is lonely. We’re born alone. We die alone. No matter how much we’re surrounded by people, even people who love us, we experience life in a way that can [...]
The prayer of writing
This essay originally appeared in the May issue of Reality, a Catholic magazine in Ireland. Norman Mailer called writing “the spooky art.” And anyone who’s been a writer, amateur [...]
Advice for new graduates: Believe. Jump. Leap. Trust.
If you’re one of the millions of young people who are graduating from high school or college this season, I have one word of advice for you: Believe. Believe in [...]
No expert, just a do-gooder
This essay original appeared in the Chicago Tribune on August 25, 2013 Edward Paul Brennan was one of us. A nobody. Born in 1866, he made deliveries for his father’s [...]
The Woven Lives of a Parish
As a parallel to the story I wrote for National Catholic Reporter in July about St. Gertrude Church and the death of our longtime religious education director, I did a [...]
“Tell ’em about the dream, Martin!”
It was a moment of high drama. And Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to find his rhythm. He stood before the Lincoln Memorial to address some quarter of [...]
Freedom “for all God’s children”
On August 28, 1963, a solemn, deliberate Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began his address at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial — the climax of the March on [...]
A parish, like a family, is made of woven lives
By Patrick T. Reardon The baby crawled along the carpet in an open area in the back of church. She was dressed in a celebration of white and red horizontal [...]