Some buildings, like some people, make the world seem better just by being there. On my early morning bicycle ride today I climbed the steep back road to the center of the University of San Diego Campus. I stopped between The Church of the Immaculata and the University’s administrative center and let the beauty of the place and the warmth of the early morning light surround me. Nothing was happening. No one spoke to me. Daily mass wasn’t going to begin for another half hour. Although I worship on Sundays at a Methodist Church, the Catholic Basilica in the middle of the USD campus speaks to me and comforts me for reasons I can’t begin to explain... in much the same way that European churches do. They make me feel connected to something intangible but critically important. Both my grandmothers had the same effect on me.

So today, I am taking time to celebrate the ephemeral but necessary something that sometimes touches me fleetingly and makes me think I should try to be better today than I was yesterday... better to my family... better to my neighbors... better even to strangers whom I shall never really know.The Center for Peach and Justice.Saint Francis.