Photo of Stephen Copeland

Stephen Copeland

Stephen Copeland is a writer and storyteller who writes regularly for Franciscan Media and the St. Anthony Messenger. He is the author of In the House of Rising Sounds (2023), Where the Colors Blend (2018), and collaborator on Franciscan Lectio (2022). Stephen's work can be found at www.copelandwrites.com.

By this Author

Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, hits from the pine straw on the 18th hole during the final round of the Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club, Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Augusta, Georgia. (AP photo/Gerald Herbert)

I went to Augusta to watch the Masters. I came home with a spiritual experience.

At the Masters, writer Stephen Copeland experienced the contemplative nature of golf.

The grotto at the Sanctuary of Greccio, Italy, where St. Francis of Assisi set up a live Nativity scene in 1223 (Wikimedia Commons/MonDoMD)

St. Francis, Kurt Vonnegut and the radical absurdity of the Incarnation

On the 800-year anniversary of Francis' live Nativity at Greccio, we're invited to reflect upon the Christmas story in a different way, in an absurd way — contemplating a God being big enough to become that small. 

(Unsplash/Josh Sorenson)

Listening with Franciscan ears

For writer and music lover Stephen Copeland, Franciscan spirituality offers the words for a kind of listening that is vital to being a human fully alive.

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