Voices
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Valerie Schultz is a freelance writer, a columnist for The Bakersfield Californian and the author of A Hill of Beans: The Grace of Everyday Troubles. She lives on the Oregon Coast.
FaithFaith in Focus
We do not anticipate young mothers dying at a moment devoted to birth, and yet we know it happens. We know about death, and yet we are caught unawares by it.
FaithFaith in Focus
Since retiring from my job, my husband has found me irritating. We had a talk (after fighting), and he is right: I am mothering him. Smothering him. “I have a mother,” he said. “I want a wife, a partner, a best friend.”
FaithFaith in Focus
The most compelling reason not to execute the convicted is an existential one: We humans are not God.
FaithFaith in Focus
Like the men of Galilee present at the ascension of Jesus, we search the skies for unclouded meaning.
FaithFaith in Focus
The church needs our young people. But we elders cannot nurture them in the faith if we repel them.
FaithFaith in Focus
It is time for us to understand how this keeps happening and to stop it. We women are being called to shake things up.
FaithFaith in Focus
Like the apostles, we have been sent out two by two to proclaim the message of Jesus with our imperfect lives.
Politics & SocietyShort Take
Pretrial freedom should not belong only to those who can purchase it.
FaithFaith in Focus
When we bargain with God, we espouse a God who keeps score, rather than the God who loves us no matter what.
FaithLast Take
There have been times when I have only held onto my Catholic faith by the smallest of fingernails. I am a doubter. I am a protester.