by Beth Casteel | Mar 31, 2025 | Reflections
The Hunger of a Homeless Soul He sat on a piece of cardboard and meager belongings. I almost stepped on him as I hurried down the street looking for a meatless lunch. It was Ash Wednesday; the evening prior had been our date night in the city. While my husband took a...
by Beth Casteel | Feb 7, 2025 | Reflections
The old man stood in the snow banging on our back kitchen door. He had a shovel in his hand. “You have to let me in! I am stuck and I need to call my brother to get me out!” I stood on the other side of the glass door, my two-year-old granddaughter perched on my left...
by Beth Casteel | Dec 11, 2024 | Reflections
I unlock the door to a hot, quiet church. The lights are off. I am alone in the cavernous 127-year-old church. I lock myself back in and turn on some lights. I breathe in the quiet of the empty Catholic church that I have attended since I was a child. The images on...
by Beth Casteel | Dec 10, 2024 | Reflections
A month before Christmas 2022, I arrived at my parents’ house to make the nut rolls – small, cookie-sized logs of rich pastry that melt in your mouth, the dough shoved full of a sugary maple-flavored walnut filling and sprinkled with powdered sugar. My mom has...
by Beth Casteel | Mar 15, 2024 | Publications
As I back out of the garage and pull the car toward the woods I see her, shining full circle, white as alabaster behind the bare trees that stand like soldiers guarding her, the top branches spidery against the moonlit sky. She lights up their silhouette....
