Cathleen Falsani is the award-winning religion columnist for the
Chicago Sun-Times and author of the new book The Dude Abides: The
Gospel According to the Coen Brothers
. She is also author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace and The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People.

Blog Entries by Cathleen Falsani

The Coen Brothers Get "Serious" with a Comic (and Spiritual) Masterpiece

45 Comments | Posted September 18, 2009 | 05:39 PM (EST)



Earlier this week, I had a bad day. Epically bad.

I ran out of cash.

I lost my credit card.

I missed my flight.

And then, standing outside...

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Cheers, Hamantashen And Shots All Around: Happy Purim!

Posted March 10, 2009 | 04:22 PM (EST)


(A scene from "Home for Purim" from the mockumentary, "For Your Consideration.")


When is it appropriate -- and even encouraged, both socially and spiritually -- to show up...

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U2'S SACRED PILGRIMAGE: 'I found grace, it's all that I found'

Posted March 7, 2009 | 12:43 PM (EST)


Without a line on the horizon, we may feel like there is no limit...

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EPIPHANY: Celebrating Moments of Truth

Posted January 6, 2009 | 02:59 PM (EST)



Aha!

In the Christian calendar, today is the Feast of the Epiphany, or, as I like to think of it, the feast of Aha!

It's the 12th Day of...

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Steppenwolf's "Seafarer": Pitch Black Comedy With a Spiritual Wallop

Posted December 16, 2008 | 05:50 PM (EST)


Set on Christmas Eve in a seaside village north of Dublin in a home populated by hard-drinking, down-on-their-luck Irishmen, Conor McPherson's play The Seafarer is not what you'd call light holiday...

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Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt

Posted December 12, 2008 | 10:32 AM (EST)


This week, I sat in a Chicago screening room with white knuckles and sweaty palms, a knot in my stomach, heart racing and an urge to jump out of my seat.

...
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Thomas Merton: A Man For This (And All) Seasons

Posted December 9, 2008 | 12:53 PM (EST)



"Merton is, in a sense, the lost soul of the 20th century, looking for redemption, looking for recovery, looking for God."

-- Sister Kathleen Deignan

...

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Talking with the Dalai Lama: What Would You Ask if You Had Just Ten Questions?

Posted December 2, 2008 | 10:34 AM (EST)


A couple of nights ago, I was channel-surfing, trying to find something mindless to watch after a difficult day. Something like "Liar Liar" or "Uncle Buck." But there was nothing on --...

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Hit the Cosmic Pause Button and Take Stock

Posted November 25, 2008 | 12:19 PM (EST)


2008-11-25-rockwellthanksgiving.jpg

It probably wasn't the last Thursday in November, and there was no pumpkin pie.

The "turkey" was more likely a goose, duck or even a crane. And there were no potatoes -- sweet, mashed or candied -- on the menu for the first Thanksgiving...

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Grace: Setting a Bold Agenda for the New President

Posted November 23, 2008 | 01:11 PM (EST)


Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."
-- Jesus, according to the Gospel of St. Matthew


"If you want peace, work...

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Trade Cards, Not People

Posted November 21, 2008 | 06:37 PM (EST)


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'Wanna own your own slave?" Jason asked over coffee in his California kitchen one morning last week.

I stared blankly and took another sip.

"Here," Jason said, sliding a stack of what looked a bit like ''Star Wars'' trading cards at me across the...

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Home: Finding Out Just Where That Is

Posted November 21, 2008 | 03:44 PM (EST)


Shortly after sunrise one Tuesday last month, tragedy visited my back yard. A yelp and a crash broke the early-morning silence and led my husband to discover our upstairs neighbor unconscious in the garden.

She'd...

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Prayers of the People for Our New President

Posted November 7, 2008 | 09:28 AM (EST)


Just after the clock struck 10 p.m. Tuesday in Chicago's Grant Park, and Wolf Blitzer's voice boomed across the Obama election night rally announcing that the junior senator from Illinois would, indeed,...

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This Vote's For You, Studs

Posted November 4, 2008 | 09:31 AM (EST)



Rarely are we able to glimpse the big picture from our vantage point, mired in the details of the here-and-now.

But now, on the cusp of the...

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You Can Sue God, But You Can't Win

Posted October 21, 2008 | 09:04 AM (EST)



Last week, a judge in Nebraska threw out a 2007 lawsuit filed against God by state Sen. Ernie Chambers, who had sought a permanent injunction against the Almighty for bringing "acts of terrorism" against the Cornhusker State.

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Our Trash, Our Treasure: Make Every Monday Matter

Posted October 13, 2008 | 09:52 AM (EST)



The salad days these surely are not.

Lately, it's hard to have a sunny outlook...

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Pentagon 9/11 Memorial: Making Beauty Out of Ugly Things

Posted September 24, 2008 | 04:59 PM (EST)


ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

Shortly after 1 a.m., the taxi came to a stop in the Pentagon parking lot. We climbed out and walked solemnly toward the otherworldly glow in the distance.

Two of my dear friends and fellow religion journalists, Jason and Michael, and I made the short journey from downtown...

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Joan Baez: Blessed be the Barefoot Madonna and Her 50 Years of Peacemaking

Posted September 18, 2008 | 11:44 AM (EST)


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They called her the "barefoot Madonna."

Nearly 50 years ago, when an 18-year-old Joan Baez lit up the stage at the Newport Folk Festival, she was an ethereal, earthy chanteuse who launched a revival of...

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The Gospel According To John Hughes

Posted August 12, 2008 | 01:47 PM (EST)


Summertime is the slow season for most churches. Pastors are faced with the perennial phenomenon of watching their congregants disappear from the pews, taking a vacation from church as well as from work and school....

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Embrace Your Grace

Posted August 11, 2008 | 10:38 AM (EST)


Grace is, by my definition, something unexpected.

So it should have been no great surprise to me to discover a great blessing of grace in, of all places, a television program.

In its...

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