Lately, I’ve been stopping to admire the light a lot.  The way autumnal light, beaming lower on the horizon, bathes the crimsons, ambers, and golds of trees this time of year.  Earlier dusks painting the sky in clear, breathless beauty as I walk to my car under increasingly bare tree limbs.  The warmth of a single candle flickering by the sofa – one among many antidotes to those fast-darkening evenings and the chilly mornings when I rise.  The pastel hues of my daughter’s miniature lava lamp, casting patterns across her ceiling at bedtime to ward off unwelcome shadows. These may be small details, observations half-formed in a midday or mid-evening moment, but for me they are also potent reminders – calling me to pay attention to the world around me, to the sacred and the small, to the reverence such details and moments can invite. In An Altar in the […]

Students and faculty will gather at several locations across campus this week to celebrate Día de los Muertos, a Hispanic cultural tradition honoring loved ones who have passed away. The kick-off event will be an evening of crafting and pozole, a traditional Mexican soup, from 6-8 p.m. on Oct. 30. The Valpo community also had the opportunity to submit photos of their loved ones to be displayed on commemorative ofrendas, Spanish for offerings, on the second floor of the Christopher Center Library, Harre Union, Loke Hall and the Gloria Christi Chapel Nov. 2-8. Sonia Morales, Assistant Director of OMP (Office of Multicultural Programs), and Kat Peters, Assistant Director of the Institute for Leadership and Service (within the Division of Calling and Spiritual Life), have been instrumental in fostering the collaboration that makes these events possible. This year, the celebrations have expanded to other facilities, in part to accommodate students who […]