The five Amish girls who recently died in the Lancaster County school shooting were prepared for burial in the traditional way: Older women dressed them all in white — simple gowns sown by their mothers, white head coverings, veils, socks and aprons. The white pointed to the purity of heaven — to which the Amish [...]

While pondering this article, I called a friend to pick her brain about crushes. She was asking me constructive questions, helping me to flesh out my idea, when she asked me this question: “Do crushes happen more often during Lent?” Suddenly I realized that her questions were not entirely rooted in altruism. I sensed that [...]

“I am walking home, I keep telling myself,” writes Jeffery Smith in Where the Roots Reach for Water. “I live on east Third Street in Missoula, Montana and I am walking home and by the time I get there this will be gone.” Smith feels his depression returning and wants to deny it. He wants [...]

It was a rare June day in Chicago — not too humid, fresh and balmy. At the farmer’s market, I filled every crevice of Anna’s stroller with leeks, carrots, tomatoes and peaches, and then schlepped my overloaded stroller to a friend’s house for lunch. My friend’s husband Isaac made lasagna, which smelled wonderful. Two bites [...]

A compelling memoir from the son of a priest and a former nun. REVIEW OF: Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son by Peter Manseau (Free Press, 400 pp.; $25) One summer my husband, John, an Eastern Orthodox priest, worked as a chaplain at a Catholic hospital. The nuns invited him [...]