opposition “If war has an opposite, gardens might sometimes be it . . .” –Rebecca Solnit, Orwell’s Roses I used to have a poster that said “peace, like war, is waged” and it made sense then but now I don’t want to be a part of anything like war so when solnit says gardens are…
Barely a week into my Lenten Journal and I am already missing days. One of the reasons is good. A longtime friend came to town for a few days and I spent the evenings talking with him instead of writing. But he’s been gone a couple of days and my depression took over responsibility for…
the grace of never mind the oceans are rising the sky is falling I am careening through an obstacle course of obligations and overdue whatevers I have unread e-mail unanswered notifications unwashed laundry and unmade recipes everything’s important and requires my attention then there’s ukraine and war and washington have you seen today’s headline I’m…
As I say in the opening paragraph of my sermon for the first Sunday in Lent, to preach about the temptations made me want to listen to the Temptations. so, round and around and around we go where the world’s headed, nobody knows oh, great googa-looga, can’t you hear me talking to you just a…
winter wonderland I think winter gets a bad rap it gets blamed for the days getting shorter but that is autumn’s fault every day of winter is a little longer than the last yes, it’s cold but I like the cold it’s also chili and cornbread build a fire bundle up people ask if my…
When I woke up this morning, I had notification of a text message a dear friend had sent while I was sleeping. She had written about my blog post from Ash Wednesday and she closed her note with these words: Your words helped me. You have a wonderful heart and brain, even though I know…
I was in fourth grade in Lusaka, Zambia when Ms. Reedy started reading A Wrinkle in Time to our class as a reward for getting our daily work done early. I had never heard anything like it. Not only did it make me a lifetime Madeleine L’Engle fan, but it let me live with the…
Luke’s account of the Transfiguration intersected life this week, thanks to the Revised Common Lectionary, and I found a strange solace in the story I had not seen before. Sometimes, I suppose, tired eyes see new things. ____________________________ Maybe it’s just me. Or maybe it’s that we are marking the second anniversary of the full…
Part of my sermon preparation this past week was spent digging into my etymological dictionary because I like to know where words come from. I found out the Latin word from which we get our word “enemy” translates literally as “an unfriend.” That new understanding shaped how I looked at Jesus’ familiar admonition to love…
Over the past week or so my depression has made a presence of itself—life feels increasingly heavy and deflated. I can point to some circumstances that are contributors, but one of the difficult things about living with depression is it doesn’t require a cause to make itself known. The lectionary passage for this week is…