La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

By Paul Magnano

Many of us have trouble speaking about the ultimate but mysterious dimensions of life. We need to rediscover the transcendent – the dimension beyond the physical, the dimension so many of us now struggle to name. For most of us these days, our only contact with the language of grace is through Bible readings at weddings and funerals. Language can be a vehicle for grace, or for disgrace, the most extreme example being the ease with which social media conveys insult and injury.

I myself am not by nature pious. I write with sympathy of St. Teresa of Avila who used to shake...