Back in December 2009, I was standing in the lobby of the U.S. Consolate in Guangzhou, China, with friends who had just become parents through the miracle of adoption.

What could be more fun than eating sushi on the water in Fell’s Point on a summer evening? We were about to find out.

My husband and sons made it home as the rain was starting, but there were no fish for dinner.

I do know this … we have no power in other people’s spaces. But God does.

Over the past few weeks, I have been going through some boxes of photos and mementoes. The idea is that I will organize them and maybe even discard some things I don’t need.

Sometimes people do terrible things. They hurt people deeply. They hurt children. They let down people who look up to them, people who trust them. They lie about what they do, and sometimes they tell the people they are hurting to lie, too.

It’s not really summer around here without at least one taste of steamed crabs.

Colleen McCormick and Don Hudson were taking off from an airport in Mexico with their children last week when their plane started shaking and crashed.

Father Doyle fields questions about why St. Michael the Archangel is a saint and whether a Catholic can be involved in scattering the ashes of a non-Catholic loved one who requests it.

The next time someone asks you to pray for something or someone specifically, it is because that suggestion is significant to him or her. Let’s really hear the petition … pray it … and mean it.