Church Shopping in Cologne
Finding a local church is crucial. Shopping for one isn’t.
Reflections on Cologne: Changed and Unchanged
Böll wrote prolifically about his city. I thought to turn to him for two thoughts about Cologne and what makes it distinct.
Their Bodies, Your Choice, Our Health
In all of these cases, your intervention in your children’s lives was an essential condition in your children’s personhood, not an infringement on it.
Pizza and Other Memories
Innamorato operates on its own timeline, hardly accountable to anything but the desire of its owner to make good pies.
Extended Stays
For the past week and a half I’ve been staying at an extended stay hotel in St. Louis, which was not a concept I was familiar with until I booked it.
Traveling Alone: A How-To
But I’ve found solo travel to be a rewarding experience. Here’s what I learned.
Liturgies
“And then of course you wonder if taking your wife to this show as the right thing to do, or if maybe you would have been better off going to dinner and having a conversation, even a monologue, as I suppose this has become.”
On Fall in Europe
My American Saturdays began with a coffee and a crescendo of college football media. Blogs, Twitter, and ESPN College Gameday made for a surround-sound cacophony of predictions, punditry, and hot takes.
Getting Around in Sicily
“Sì sì sì sì,” he said. The letters had rearranged themselves in Italian. This is how we would communicate.
Learning to Speak
Weekly we repeated the words. Gender is not the same as sex.
Falling Calendars
To believe in something other than what is materially in front of you is awkward. It likely means that what you expect tomorrow is impossible today.
The 2018 NCAA Tournament: A Primer
Coming off a slow, ugly but eventually conclusive first-round victory over Montana, the Wolverines are riding a wave of 10-straight wins. May the streak run longer than their inseams.
Translating Karneval
I’ve only lived through three Karnevals, so I’d like to leave you with three thoughts on a holiday I’ve come to know, but not yet understand.
Tilt Shift
But some of the biggest edits often go unnoticed, like the tilt shift, which wholly alters the picture’s presentation. I asked Geli whether these tactics are deceptive, especially to novices like me. Are your pictures presenting the truth?
Christmas During the Time Being
The story has been told, but the rest of us are still here: waiting in the middle of the narrative, confronted with Herod’s uncomfortable realization: we aren’t enough.
Seeing Things Again
There’s a Dutch phrase about the Dom, my grandpa claims. “See the Cologne Cathedral and you can die.”
Protest and the Church
The first thing is that protest has a clear place in church tradition. The scriptures and church history testify to it.
Writing the Where
These three things struck me about the way Gopnik writes about place. Perhaps they contain a few lessons that will help us in writing about where we’re from, where we are, and where we’re yet to go.
The Prudent Keep Quiet in Such Times
Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.
Wearing Sweatpants to a German Supermarket
In the US, wearing sweatpants to the grocery store is an act of conformity. In Germany as in many other countries on the continent, it’s an act of rebellion.
The Literal German Word
I was satisfied in my decision. There was thrill in riding without a ticket. And I was convinced that what I was doing was right. I was in line with the spirit of the law, even if the law had no spirit.
May Reading Recommendations
This month, I’d like to highlight a few things I’ve enjoyed reading online over the last couple of months, starting of course, with a piece on the perils of reading and writing online.
For whom the rooster crows
There are other surmised explanations for the rooster’s place on church steeples, but this account seems the most plausible to me.
Crossing German streets
Life as an expat can be categorized according to two phenomena: experiences that reinforce the expat’s sense of belonging to her heritage and experiences that point to a shift in identity.
How to Escape
Where had he been when? What happened on the way? Why was he there? How did he die? The answers were dispersed on these 28 square feet. We needed them to get out.
Eating Schnitzel in Germany
Thus, dousing your schnitzel in gravy is a gastronomical shot in the foot, tantamount to putting ice cream in the oven.
Spending Advent in Vienna
Vienna is a bizarre place to spend Advent because, as Billy Joel reminds us, it’s a city more accustomed to waiting than arriving.
Election 2016: Voices from the Pews
Some were written before the election and some after, but each of them answers the question “How can I be a Christian citizen of the United States of America?” in a uniquely helpful way.
Why Tax Day Should be in October
Because of my extension, my tax deadline fell in a period of the liturgical year called Ordinary Time, which seems more apt than the traditional timing of Tax Day, so close to Passion Week.
A Dispatch from Cologne, 13 Months In
We joked about casseroles and politeness and the American Midwest. Then he asked me how I like Cologne.
