Death & Decapitation
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Beauty is the battlefield where God and the Devil war for the soul of man. - Fyodor Dostoevsky
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I really don’t like thinking about death, but I think about it a lot. It is brought to the forefront of my thoughts by tragic events...
Lara Neri
- Jun 27, 2019
- 6 min
Not Arrested in Italy
In the fall of 1995, I traveled to Italy to study for the semester at the University of Dallas Rome campus, located just outside of Rome...
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Lara Neri
- May 30, 2019
- 3 min
Ascending Hero Mountain
When I taught English in China, we were in a filthy, rat-infested village, crawling with giant cockroaches and shrouded in a pervasive...
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Lara Neri
- May 22, 2019
- 4 min
You've got to play just to make it today
As a child, I created a notebook with color-coded pages on which I had done drawings of each outfit I owned to accompany my color-coded...
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Lara Neri
- May 9, 2019
- 4 min
Where is that lacrosse team?
When I was a graduate student in literature, I came across two books that had a formative effect on my philosophy of education: John...
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Lara Neri
- May 2, 2019
- 4 min
Crowning the Warrior Queen
On my journey into the Catholic Church, Mary was a real problem for me for a while. Even after I realized that Catholics do not worship...
235 views1 comment
Lara Neri
- Apr 23, 2019
- 3 min
I'm just a girl
This coming Sunday is Thomas Sunday. I have always liked this Apostle, as I really relate to him, at least as far as struggling with...
121 views1 comment
Lara Neri
- Apr 19, 2019
- 6 min
By death He trampled death
I love Easter so much that it is hard to write about it. I cry thinking about it. It is the most full of true joy, the most expressive of...
143 views2 comments
Lara Neri
- Apr 11, 2019
- 5 min
Flowery Sunday in Constantinople
Flowery (Palm) Sunday began to be celebrated in Constantinople by the fifth century - a couple centuries after it began in Jerusalem and...
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Lara Neri
- Apr 4, 2019
- 4 min
Onward & Upward
I remember listening in amazement in high school chapel at my Christian school as various guest speakers told of dramatic conversions...
105 views1 comment
Lara Neri
- Mar 21, 2019
- 4 min
saying yes to losing control
When I was younger I did not want the mess, the noise, the chaos, or the financial burden of children. And I was under the impression...
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Lara Neri
- Feb 28, 2019
- 3 min
Will "Beauty save the world"?
I have often heard or seen Dostoevsky quoted, “Beauty will save the world.” It is attributed to him as if it were his personal...
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Lara Neri
- Feb 21, 2019
- 4 min
Approaching Great Lent: all are responsible for all
Several years ago, after very emotional struggles with infertility and two heartbreaking miscarriages, we began our first adoption. It...
351 views4 comments
Lara Neri
- Feb 14, 2019
- 3 min
St. Valentine: active love is labor and fortitude
In our family, we have four very intense children, two adopted with trauma histories, one with secondary trauma, one with a missing...
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Lara Neri
- Feb 7, 2019
- 3 min
St. Scholastica & the loving fatherhood of God
I have a hard time relating to the saints who knew they were going to be nuns from the time they were six - those saints who wanted to do...
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Lara Neri
- Feb 1, 2019
- 2 min
Suffering & Softening
The feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple (2 February) is one of the Twelve Major Feast Days in the Eastern Church, also...
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Lara Neri
- Jul 26, 2016
- 2 min
art camps: pursuing Beauty together
Two intensive weeks of art camps have come to an end, and I am thankful for the experience. I kept enrollment to four students per camp...
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Lara Neri
- May 6, 2016
- 2 min
the feast of the Ascension
I love this quiet, mid-week feast day celebrating Christ's rising up to Heaven in His resurrected body. He leaves us with the commission...
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Lara Neri
- May 5, 2016
- 1 min
the feast of St. George
St. George is a popular saint, renowned for slaying a dragon and saving a princess. He is venerated as a vanquisher of evil and knight of...
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Lara Neri
- May 2, 2016
- 3 min
doing shots for the saints
The first time I met Babushka, my friend Ira’s 76 year old grandmother, she appeared as a tiny speck in a row boat across the water. As...
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