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When I was young, my favorite book was Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.

Original sin is an important doctrine that points out, among other things, that we are not quite right. As St. Paul says, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.

The Nepalese people are wonderful, gentle, sincere and happy. I fell in love with them on my first trip there.

The just man appraises the house of the wicked: there is one who brings down the wicked to ruin.

-Proverbs 21:12

How many dimensions does the world have? Most of us would say "three." Albert Einstein said "four," with the fourth dimension being time.

I was kindly invited to attend a Thai wedding, the daughter of a friend of one of the Dominicans here. A good Catholic family, they were quite happy to have one more priest to attend.

From Boudha, Nepal. This morning I went running up to a Krishna temple with Chandra and Rajeesh. Chandra (center) is hoping to move the USA.

This is the Hindu month of Shravan, a sort of Hindu Lent, where people intensify their practice.

Jesus told the crowds this parable:

Driving through Iowa, and the corn is doing well. Storm fronts are moving through, bringing alternating patches of sunshine and torrential rain.

Jesus tells us: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth" (John 14: 15-17).

From Jesus' Last Discourse to his disciples (John 14:27-31):

Gospel: John 5:17-30
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In the story of the Annunciation we have the template of how God works sacramentally with the world: The Father sends the Spirit to incarnate the Son

Beauty abounds in the Wisconsin winter. I celebrate it most mornings by skiing through the snowy woods or across frozen lake Wingra. I don't get out every morning.

Running this morning at dawn, back home in my woods, in Madison, I was overwhelmed by God’s voice: “Come back to me, my people. What have I done to offend you?”

This is the bottom of Salvador Dali’s famous painting “Christ of St. John of the Cross,” hanging in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. (You can see the entire painting below.) The figure of Christ—crucified yet “as beautiful as the God he is” as Dali has written—dominates the painting and gives meaning to it as a religious masterpiece, but I believe that it is the bottom part of painting that holds the key.

I went to mass this morning with the Missionaries of Charity. The Gospel was the Good Samaritan, who took care of the stranger in the road who had been beaten half to death.

They say, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” It is something like that when the sun breaks through during rainy season. After a week of rain, the sun gloriously broke forth this morning. In the picture you can see the shadows of the prayer flags on the stupa, as if they are no longer simply hovering above it but caressing it with their blessing.

I used the opportunity to wash my sheets and hang them out to dry—with an effect that was no less glorious than the sunshine. I won't go into detail, but let me just say that I will continue to do my own laundry here.

Getting sick in a different culture is always interesting. I obviously ate something problematic and was running a fever, was tired, and felt like I had been kicked in the stomach.

Electricity and water never run continuously here in Nepal, though now, in the rainy season, they work for about 18-20 hours a day (since much of the power is generated hydroelectrically).

I have a “comfortable” room in the Om Guest House here in Boudha, Nepal, in a quiet part of town next door to the Hyatt Regency.