Of Sound Mind and Spirit

Nearly three full weeks into Advent and Christmas is just around the corner! These weeks in which we JOYfully await the incarnation of Christ; that is, the son of God become man, in order to bring about our salvation. This year, aware of Advent and preparing my heart (if not my house) in anticipation of the coming Christmas season, I’ve not been in the mood for traditional Christmas music. Not yet. I guess I'm looking forward to the actual celebration from Dec 25-January 6. Our local Christian station is playing Christmas music and talking about this wonderful Christmas season (which they think will end exactly at 12:01 a.m. on December 26. Of course, that's when I'll finally be singing Hark The Herald Angels Sing .) Call me counter-cultural… I’m just not in the mood yet this year to belt out O Holy Night .  So what are some great Advent songs?  Good waiting songs?  My traditional favorite O Come O Come Emmanuel is (shhh) growing stale. But this morn

My children holding a picture of Josselyn and the Quetzal picture she drew for us. I'm sure you've heard the wonderful aspects of sponsoring a child, both the benefits for the sponsored child and for the sponsoring family.  For years I had the desire to sponsor, but never took advantage of the opportunity to sign up with an organization.  Our family finally signed up for our first sponsored friend this summer and I am truly excited to share with you our experience so far with Unbound.  And to implore you to consider signing up to sponsor a child or adult.  Over the summer a representative spoke at our parish, inviting us to sponsor children through the organization Unbound.  In the church foyer they had sponsor packets with names, ages and pictures of children and elderly in need of sponsoring.  They were from all over the world.  My girls were hooked.  They went from table to table, packet to packet trying to find the child they wanted to sponsor.  It was quickly deci