Author Archives: Jack N. Lawson

I have been noticing hands more and more since moving to rural France. We live in Lower Normandy, where nearly everyone–female or male–works with his/her hands in some fashion. We are surrounded by farmers, mechanics and engineers. The mayor of our commune is an engineer for Eaux de Normandie. And just try to find aContinue reading “Calloused Hands”

I was recently asked by a friend to share a reflection on “the least of these” from Matthew 25:31-46. It was for an upcoming retreat. That passage has been foundational throughout my ministry: from my beginning as a prison chaplain to parishes wherein I founded charities which worked with substance misuse, homeless/hunger and community mediation–andContinue reading “The ‘Least’ in Society”

I spent most of today at St. Martin Hospital in Caen, where my wife was having an outpatient procedure–for which all went well. I had hours on my hands; but only the busy lobby or the hospital café offered space to sit. Outside offered the Normand rain. Despite its noise and rush of people, IContinue reading “A God (Hot)Spot?”

I have been working outside between showers lately. Yesterday I stopped to take note of pansies growing through the gravel on our drive. (I now park our car in another spot.) They are beautiful in their random appearance. That got me thinking about randomness in life, the universe and everything. Our news media tend toContinue reading “Random Grace?”

My wife and I live in a nearly two-century-old farmhouse in Basse-Normandie. We have a stable, hangar and henhouse, as well as another old building that is badly in need of repair. I am not without rural experience, for my early years were spent in the countryside and my family had a farm in Virginia’sContinue reading “Reflections from a Hot Bath”

The world awaits the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial. It is a trial in which American justice itself is in the dock. But since George Floyd’s death at the knee of Derek Chauvin, there have been numerous other killings of African-Americans at the hands of police. And then there are the mass shootings–the newContinue reading “White (Privilege) Flight?”

I was recently blocked from the Far Side (Gary Larson) FB page, dedicated to the great cartoonist’s wit, as well as other like-minded cartoonists. I had made what I thought was an apposite comment about a cartoon. The cartoon in question was of a black swan (not an “ugly duckling“) looking into a pond andContinue reading “Life Is so Peculiar”

My fourth novel is now ready for publication and is totally unlike the previous three. This book is a farce set in an enchanted retirement community, called Carolina Woods. I have described the community as a blend of Dante’s Inferno and Greek mythology’s Hades, as people fully become what they were all along, but generallyContinue reading “The Way of All Flesh”

The title of this blog comes from Meister Eckhart, a 13th/14th century theologian and mystic. That quotation has remained with me since I first read it years ago. For me it simply made sense. After having made my fifth–and final–trans-Atlantic move last year, it makes even more sense. Unlike the bar in “Cheers”, I liveContinue reading “Live as Though You Did Not Exist”

On this snowy day in Orne, Normandie, I have been given to reflection on times past. For some reason I thought about the most joyful eucharist I ever attended…and it was years before I was ordained. It happened when I was hitchhiking back from Canada where I had spent a short time in a hospiceContinue reading “A Proustian Moment”