It’s hard to be patient when it comes to the spiritual life. We get frustrated at confessing the same things over and over again. We fail to notice the genuine steps of growth. I came across this quote from St. Irenaeus which speaks to the need to be patient with yourself and with what God is doing in you: It is not you who shapes God;...

Permission. That’s ultimately what’s needed in order to enter into Sabbath, a key pillar of The Quiet Life. Simply avoiding work isn’t enough. It’s permission to enter more deeply into rest that matters. When was the last time that you gave yourself permission to take a full day of rest? My son just graduated from high school. Before w...

Think about yesterday- did you hurry? Was there a moment when you felt rushed to complete a task or breeze through a meeting? I have long considered St. Francis de Sales to be the unofficial patron saint of productivity and The Quiet Life, especially for quotes such as this: “Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spi...

Much of The Quiet Life is about the anticipation of context and the impact it has on us. For example, I look forward to a hike with my children. I imagine clean air, the sound of gravel under my boots and the vistas at the top of the summit. I’m smiling just thinking about it. Do you do this when it comes to prayer? Does it feel like d...

Many of you know that my professional work is with a faith-based nonprofit that provides vital training to those on college campuses. Once a year, I invite my audience to support our work- today is that day! Our organization, the Catholic Campus Ministry Association, has been serving college campus ministers (lay and ordained professio...

A member of my board (at work) likes to text me a photo each weekend of a book he's reading. It's fun because it keeps me honest as a reader and thinker. It makes me want to keep reading and keep growing as a Christian and as a leader. I shared with him that I've been re-reading Everyday Simplicity: a Practical Guide to Spiritual Growt...

Happy Easter! I know that most Christians only use that term on Easter Sunday itself but Catholics know that it endures for a full season. The Church reminds us that the joy of Easter is greater than the fasting and abstinence of Lent. It can be all-too-easy to just go back to the hustle of daily life, post Easter. If we’re not careful...

It’s the Holy Triduum and I’m taking some extra time to read, pray and be silent. It was a hard Lent for me. I felt like my dog when he wants to go right and I pull him left. He eventually comes to my side but not without a bit of tugging. Part of my difficulty is a stubbornness in prayer. I do it, for sure, but I’m often trying to tak...

If you’re Catholic, you likely know that Lent is a time of repentance. This often includes frequenting the Sacrament of Confession prior to Easter. The question isn’t whether or not you ought to go but when you ought to go to Confession. My advice: if you’re an extrovert, go to the Penance service offered by your parish. This is the ty...

Today is what the Church calls Laetere Sunday, the midway point in Lent. The Psalm is perhaps my favorite, Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd… gets me every time. I simply cannot read this Psalm without a heavy sense of blessing and a light awareness of discipleship. Something that I’ve done for a while is to kiss my Bible after I’ve fi...

It’s been nearly a month since my last post. Things have been quite busy over at Nonprofit Productive and I confess that the tangible feedback I receive from that community makes it easier for me to invest in. If you feel I should still write here via this blog, drop me a line. It’s been quiet of late. Still, I have observations relate...

Every once in a while, you have to mix things up. This applies to meal planning at home, workouts at the gym and yes, morning prayer. I enjoy sitting by the glow of the Christmas tree in December and January. There’s just something about it. Still, by February, things had gotten stale. The tree was long gone. The visual stimuli of a la...

Longtime readers know that I’m a BIG fan of spiritual direction as an aid to the spiritual life. I’ve had bad directors, so-so directors and excellent directors over the years. My worst director, which only lasted a few months, was a fan of handouts. Mid-sentence, he would reach back and find a handout to address whatever we were discu...

It’s been said that Mother Teresa of Calcutta experienced years of spiritual dryness. Ditto for St. Teresa of Avila and countless other saints. Dryness is when your prayer life feels stale. You haven’t sensed God’s presence, physically or emotionally in a while. You feel like you’re going through the motions. Dryness happens- don’t be ...

You might think that the scandal of our time is that of clerical sexual abuse and it would be hard to argue against that. Still, I’m mindful of another Achilles heal in our church and it’s that of poor preaching. I once told a bishop and friend that I didn’t think that a man should be ordained unless he demonstrated a B or above abilit...

Not everyone can afford to go on a fancy retreat or purchase a monthly subscription to a prayer app. Thankfully, there's something that's free over at NPP that people have been loving: the Ideal Week Template. While I had originally designed this for people to organize their week, it's actually perfect for scheduling your prayer. See w...

The dam finally broke. After two years of being safe, prudent and healthy, one of our boys came down with covid. Then two relatives. Then our other son. Omicron is unpredictable and swift. From what I can tell, there’s only so much you can do about it. With someone in the house in isolation, evening prayers have turned into everyone st...

As the New Year approaches, we are often invited to reflect on the “top ten stories” of the past year and imagine the “trends that will define us in 2022”, etc. I actually love these quick reads (or watches if you’re a YouTube fan). One in particular which was fascinating was The Economist’s trends for 2022. I had no flipping idea what...

Good morning, here’s hoping that your Christmas was blessed. There are two times of the year that I absolutely love: -Thanksgiving weekend -The week after Christmas The former because it’s void of the pressures of gifting and consumerism. The latter because it’s a bit of an exhale…Christmas is over and we can look to the new year. To t...

I recently hosted an online event called the Nonprofit Productivity Summit and it was, without a doubt, one of the highlights of 2021. That and coaching my son’s soccer team but that’s another blog post for another day. In the lead up to the Summit, I decided to donate 10% of the profits to a local ministry called New Bethany Ministrie...

This time of year is stressful. Often, we’re not even aware of the stress and its affects on our bodies. Then, when you least expect it, you snap at someone or just plain feel tired. Here’s something I’ve been trying lately: breathing as a starter for prayer. It goes like this: 1. Take a deep breath in, closing your eyes to the count o...

When was the last time you changed it up with your morning prayer routine? I used to go to the gym with my friend Allan. He told me that he would do the same exercises for about a month and then mix things up. His body (and his head) would tell him when it was time to try out different machines and alternate movements. How about you wh...

Hi friends, quick note regarding the weekend after Thanksgiving. Don’t lose your inner peace by “having to go” to the store for a great deal. Ignore the emails flooding your inbox right now, urging you to spend, worry and rush. You really can save 100% by simply not buying stuff. Or, you can choose to wait and then buy things later, on...

Have you ever come across a person who is never satisfied with anything? It’s as if, no matter how hard others try, it’s never good enough. After a while, you begin to avoid that person. When it comes to The Quiet Life, the same principle applies. When you come across a negative source of media, best to steer clear. Recently, the US Bi...

We used to call them diaries but at some point, that word went out of style. Today, the chic term is “journal” and Barnes and Noble has a whole section dedicated to them. Turns out, writing is still pretty important. When it comes to your morning quiet time, a journal can be quite the asset. I’ve used DayOne for many years, logging tho...

What are you waiting for? A friend of mine is waiting for a situation with his son to improve. A relative waits for test results from the doctor. A neighbor waits for her daughter’s behavior to level out. We all wait for things. The question is, how well do you wait? I’d give myself a waiting grade of a C on a good day. As a New Englan...

The older I get, the more I say no to invitations to give workshops and talks. It’s just not an effective way to scale your business. Still, there are times when you get invited to something and just have to say yes. In this case, the old Catholic guilt kicked in and I agreed to give a 7am talk to a bunch of guys an hour away. The reas...

There is a disconnect I see for many who work for the Church. Their work is oriented towards serving those in need (good) but their desks are a mess (bad). We’ve come to believe that it’s ok to have an overflowing inbox as long as we are visiting the sick and praying every day. I don’t buy it. In workshops and seminars, a line that I l...

How’s your morning routine? This question has been on my mind lately as what used to be a quiet morning routine (in the Summer months) has become a busy, kids-bustling-around time of the day. Lunches are being packed, permission slips are being signed, clothes are being found, etc. For whatever reason, this morning was different. My ol...

Each of us knows what it means to feel bothered. We don’t think about it that often but you know it when you see it (or feel it). I coach my 10 year old’s soccer team along with another dad. It’s one of the highlights of the week. While we put in the effort to plan practices and execute a brilliant game plan, the kids on the team are s...