image by Ylanite Nietjuhart, on Pixabay, modified Peacekeeping What I learned over years: pray song, songbirds, a difference between woe and wonder, between my rugged rock rambling and a gentle sky. Holding poles apart stays a habit when I cannot find words for the world, when I try to survive a closed question or no question at all fearing no one fonds me, a falling into distance. When moon cuts my arms, I rivet to own terms, and too much silence appears to be not the peaceful...

image by claude alleva, on Pixabay Tenth Anniversary Issue of Spirit Fire Review! Ten years ago, Janine Pickett founded Spirit Fire Review. With a lot of care and prayer she tended it for several years then turned the editor-in-chief role over to me. Janine has contributed amazing personal testimonies, plus beautiful artwork and photographs. She's continued to support the journal all these years. Thanks so much, Janine! [Check out some of her work through the "Archives" page: March...

image by Andre Rau, on Pixabay, slightly modified Parochial Beginnings Working the system came early to us boys, shrewdly answering “I’ll be a priest” to Father Tom’s question about vocations, for we’d seen older boys who’d professed like us awarded opportunities others didn’t receive— never thinking ahead to our dying day when most certainly the all-knowing Lord, having read the encyclopedias of our lives as plumbers and mechanics and bankers and clerks, would gaze into our souls and ask,...