Mary Murphy

2024 Grateful 15: Decisions

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions. Author John Ortberg wrote: Columbia researcher Sheena Iyengar has found that the average person makes about seventy conscious decisions every day. That’s

man in shorts walking barefoot through a forest carrying his shoes. Body visible from thighs down

2024 Grateful 16: Doing good is contagious

A post popped up on my Facebook feed about a music festival in Nucșoara, a village in Romania nearly halfway between Brașov and Bucharest. Always

2024 Grateful 17: Malta will never be the same

I first visited Malta in 2010. A new job. New people. A new chapter. I briefly contemplated moving there full time but I had done

two men in stand on the edge of a forest with a pile of full black bin bags on the ground in front of them. They're looking happy.

Plastic Pickup

Many moons ago, when I was negotiating a Catholic convent school education, one of the nuns put a question to us. I can still see

Massive white cross standing against a blue sky with people at base looking like insects they're so small

2024 Grateful 18: Sad Jesus

More and more often I’m asked, with some amount of incredulity, if I’m religious. Or my friends are asked that about me. There was a

Facade of a synogogue embellished with a clock and a Hebrew inscription that reads, "For my house, be called to the house of prayer for all peoples."

2024 Grateful 19: On the day I die

I’ve been re-reading Daniel Silva‘s Gabriel Allon series and enjoying them again. They’re a gift that keeps on giving. I also visited the old synagogue

country lane wth fields of sunflowers on either side

2024 Grateful 21: Buying distance

I flew into Budapest late one afternoon. The sensible thing would have been to stay overnight in the city and get the train down to

Wooden shelf on which sits a wooden loaf of bread - writing on the wall reads; vzemi, gospod, in sprejmi

2024 Grateful 22: Spiritual Uplift

Months ago, himself was invited to visit the Jesuits in Ljubljana on the feast of St Ignatius of Loyola. They were launching the Slovenian translation

hand holding a drawing of a stick family - woman, man, and two children

2024 Grateful 23: A man called Ove

I’ve only recently discovered the brilliant Swedish author Fredrik Backman. Were I in charge of the world, I’d make his book – A Man Called