MSI Press Blog

  Last Saturday and every December 21. people from all over gather at Old Mission San Juan Bautista to sit in the dark, waiting for the sun to rise. That travel and wait is worth it, they say, as the sun enters the upper window and starts moving across the front of the church. When it comes to the Tabernacle into splays into molten gold and streams down the center -- a breath-holding, inspiring, spiritual event. For several days before and after, a more faded form of this display occurs.  Old Mission San Juan Bautista is indeed a special place. You can learn much more about the Mission through the books of Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission. Check out her books HERE . Are you an author concerned about a load of phishing and scams that come your way and might be legitimate offers? Or conversely, do you want to make sure a legitimate offer is actually legitimate and good? Join the free  MSI Press discussion group  on January 11, 2025 as we examine how to tell the differen...

  winter solstice at Old Mission San Juan Bautista Thanks to Arthur Yavelberg, author of A Theology for the Rest of Us , for this post: Religion has a bad rap these days for all kinds of reasons--many of which are more than fair. Unfortunately, what often gets lost in these issues is the basic nature of true faith and spirituality--hope.   After all, the alternative is bleak--an uncaring, arbitrary universe in which everything has arisen by accident and will eventually dissolve just as randomly.  As the Psalmist writes, our lives are as so many blades of grass and, once we are gone, our footsteps will disappear and it will be as if we never were. Compare that with the fundamental message of the spirit: there is not only design in our universe, but a divine purpose that, while perhaps mysterious, exists nevertheless.  Our lives may be limited, but we can sense the infinite--both in terms of time and the love and compassion that are the essence of what it means to...