Los Angeles. A missing girl. A private detective in a dark suit behind the wheel of a vintage Corvette. His name is John Sugar. He knows how to follow someone without being seen, how to spot a lie and what's next when a conversation becomes a
What Thomas Merton Learned at Fourth and Walnut On March 18, 1958, Thomas Merton was standing at the intersection of Fourth and Walnut in downtown Louisville when something unusual happened. Merton had spent years in a Trappist monastery in rural Kentucky pursuing silence, prayer, and the inner
Editor’s Note It has been some time since we last shared a From the Circle reflection. This one arrived recently and seemed important to share. A Reader’s Reflection There are moments when a reader’s words arrive with a certain weight—especially when they speak to the work of finding
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity. –George Bernard Shaw The past weekend was heavy. As reports circulated from Brown to Bondi Beach to Brentwood, a sense of foreboding covered
Integrity isn’t the loud virtue we admired in childhood. It rarely announces itself, and it rarely wins applause. As we grow older, we begin to see integrity differently — not as moral perfection, but as coherence, the ongoing work of letting our inner life and
December feels different for each of us. The lights may bring a bit of warmth, while old memories rise to the surface — some good and some hard. Joy and sadness often sit close together this time of year, though not always in equal measure. This
“I have found that the simple act of a genuine smile is powerful in changing the mood of a person.” A reader left that comment on a recent post, and we haven’t stopped thinking about it. In a world where words often do too much, a
What Our Solitude Is Trying to Teach Us The house stays the same now. The books on the table, the jacket on the chair, the glass by the sink—they wait. When the house was full, nothing stayed still for long. Now even the air feels stagnant.
Across different languages of faith and practice, we keep finding the same thing: at our best, we belong to one another. In a recent Spiritual Signals article “On Healing and Hope”—we explored how small practices (prayer, meditation, quiet intention, community, time in nature) can steady a
A response to “The Shadow of Fear: Why Men Go Missing in Spiritual Conversations.” When we published our article on men and their fears, it struck a chord. Among the responses was one that felt deeply personal yet broadly representative of what many wrestle with in
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