We have had the kind of weekend that makes me glad I live in New England: cool mornings, highs in the seventies, low humidity, and the long, warm, late-afternoon light that lets you know the days won’t be this way for long. Our little town put on a Performing Arts Festival that gave us good…
tiny waltz and somehow a day worth bottling has slipped into night without leaving words to describe how it felt and I have spent far too long staring at a screen as though the sheer silence of sitting would shape my sentences and I have deleted far more than I have saved but that’s true…
how are you? is the throwaway question in need of redemption when asked it should be followed by a pregnant pause the questioner willing to be the midwife we have let ourselves settle for hit and run compassion for lots of reasons we mean well we want to know –I’ve got to take this i…
When I had my first knee replacement, a church member called about a week after the surgery and said, “I can help you,” and so we asked her to come to the house. To say she is a physical therapist feels her short; she is a healer. Her visits were a big part of my…
harvest moon I posted a picture of the moonrise over Long Island Sound and a friend in Arkansas wrote, “It was really bright at our house too!” Another friend in Carolina told me she is talking to a group in Australia who feed hungry people about ways she can help I have one more from…
Part of my Sunday morning ritual is to pour a cup of coffee and watch CBS Sunday Morning until it’s time to go to church. I’ve watched the show on and off since the days of Charles Kuralt. It is just the right mix of calm and questions. Not a bad prelude for worship. This…
As I journaled this morning, the word mercy worked its way to the top. And it struck me that mercy and merci might have something in common, which they do etymologically. Gratitude and kindness share the same roots. As I wrote, I thought of Mary Gauthier’s song “Mercy Now,” which has stayed close to me…
A few nights ago, I quoted Gareth Higgins: “When we tell a diminished story, we make a diminished life.” I went on to talk about what the word diminished meant. My friend Jeff offered this comment in response: Another use of the word: “Diminished” chords beg to be resolved because of the dissonance- I think…
This morning I started a new book, or I should say restarted; it is another that has laid fallow for some time. The book is After the Locusts: Letters from a Landscape of Faith by Denise M. Ackermann, a South African feminist liberation theologian. The book was a gift from my friend Kenny. In the…
As friends of mine are keeping the fast of Yom Kippur, I learned about a Jewish holiday I knew only by name: the Festival of Booths, or Sukkot (which is the Hebrew word that means booths). The week-long observance happens in the fall. This year, it begins next Monday, September 20. It came up in…