The people who walked in darkness    have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—    on them light has shined. –the prophet Isaiah

So much life going on in such a small space! Don’t let photography fool you. What you see is maybe 4 to 6 inches of plant materiel floating on the water of Black Bayou Lake. And if you know how to count them, you see 4 damselflies, each in a different moment of the process of becoming a damselfly. Allow me to enumerate. Beginning at the top right, a newly emerged damselfly, called a “teneral,” is still very wet. It can’t fly. It will sit there for hours–up to a day–for its wings to dry enough to fly. It is…

In the late 1800s, Louisiana had over 9 million acres of longleaf pine forest. Twenty-five years later, most of it was gone. In it’s place, 5 and a half million acres of stumps. Nationwide, 90 million acres of longleaf forest was virtually wiped out during the same period. Today, just 2 million acres remain and of that, less than a half percent are “old growth,” that is, trees that were never cut and replanted. Along with the trees, almost 600 species of plants and animals dependent on the unique longleaf ecosystem were thrown into chaos. Today about half of those…

“[I]t is easy to be overwhelmed by the troubles of the world. It is possible to be frozen in our tracks by seemingly insurmountable problems. It is tempting to do nothing because we know we can’t do everything. Sometimes we decide that we didn’t cause a situation therefore it’s not our job to fix it. But where is Love in that? Where is Love in those truly human—but truly joyless responses to a hurting world and to our hurting neighbors?” Here’s a link to my entire homily on the topic: Choose joy!

“Profit from your time alone, go into yourself, and listen out for the voice that comes unbidden. Listen to that part of you that knows all along what you have to do. This is the intelligence of love; the voice that speaks without complicated explanations, simple and to the point. When you hear that voice, do its bidding. Do not think twice and do not look back.” ~ Roger Housden, Chasing Rumi