Laurie Schmitt

I never was much for horror stories. My limit for creepy stops at The Addams Family, but, I bit the proverbial silver bullet, and read Jennifer The Damned, by Karen Ullo. It’s a one-of-a-kind horror story. Jennifer -- an orphaned girl, adopted by religious sisters, and a vampire to boot -- is a timely read, especially with teen vampire stories being today’s…

On a chilly windowsill, my flowering cyclamen blossoms in hot pink. Its five petaled blooms reach out from strong, spring-time green tubers, as a reminder, that against all odds, in season and out, we are called to thrive. It’s a brave little plant. Bold against cold. Outside, the Midwest winter weather hangs on. Over the weekend we celebrated a…

I feel like a Paul Revere rider, with my boots to my knees and woolen coat draping below, except my shout is “One foot might land, Two it could be!” But it’s not the depth of snow so much as the plunging temperature. The wind chill factor drops us to below thirty below. Frigid, rigid and frosty. The…

The story of the wedding feast at Cana is one I’ve heard a thousand times. I prayed my way through it recently, Lectio Divina style, expecting a real good, feel good, prayer time. I wasn’t looking for anything fresh, nor expecting new insight. The story in sum: six large stone jars held dirty wash water, and, in response to Mary’s…

In my years BC, before children, I shopped at a local flea market and found a one of a kind find – a sturdy, slightly roughhoused, man’s immigration trunk. The Douglas fir grain, aching with age, is textured with tiny rivulets and boasts a host of small scuffs and steely spike impressions. Rustic iron grab handles, forged and…

 I just came back from pilgrimage with Joseph Pearce. Well, that’s what it feels like to have read his slim but bounteous book, Merrie England. Together we walked and he talked about all the sights and sounds surrounding. He brought to life the poets and prose–ers, the players and posers in England’s rhetorical, historical landscape. Reading this book, provided…

Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting ,“The Peasant Wedding” (1567), depicts a rambunctious, old world, small town celebration. Uproarious laughter and boisterous shouting, the banging of empty ale mugs on heavy wooden tables, the giggle of children munching on treats, spill out from the painting. It’s a snapshot of a typical village scene from medieval times and one of…

Another Monday after a busy weekend. My social, emotional and intellectual skills have all fizzled out. Not a good time, probably, to take a look at major life goals and try to fit them into the skinny slivers of time sporadically available to me in my ordinary and sometimes hectic life. Most middle-aged women these days have just…