It is in the shelter of each other that the people live. That is the Irish proverb from which Pádraig Ó Tuama takes the title of his book. I’ve been thinking about it all day, particularly since our governor announced a new “stay home, stay safe” policy that requires all “non-essential” businesses to close. I…

I went back to In the Shelter by Pádraig Ó Tuama this morning because I needed his words again. I have no doubt his is a book I will keep coming back to. In the opening pages, he writes about Jesus visiting the disciples in the upper room after the Resurrection. He recalls an experience…

I went walking around the Green today three different times for no other reason than I needed to get out of the house. The first time, Ginger and I walked down to the Marketplace to buy some bread, but my second trip was going nowhere in particular other than out. I came home to find…

Tonight Ginger and I watched the lastest episode of American Idol. The show is at the point where they do video profiles of those who have made it to Hollywood Week and pull at the heartstrings as hard as they can. For almost every one of them, music was a way through the pain of…

I have a confession: I have never read Dante’s Inferno. I have read plenty of books and articles that use it as a reference or symbol, but I have never slogged through it. Yes, I know it’s great literature. Part of it is, I suppose, I never cared about hell that much. I mention it…

I think I am beginning to see that music is one of the things that is going to get me through these days. I sang the song I posted last night–Traveling Mercies–in church today as our benediction. As I sat down to write, I kept thinking about songs that call us together, that remind us…

Tonight’s post was supposed to be from Durham, North Carolina. I was going to drive down for the week to check on our house, see friends I dearly miss, and then watch basketball games all next weekend with my friend Jay. The NCAA decided that Jay should stay put in Boston. I wrestled with whether…

Tonight Ginger and I watched A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which I thought was going to be a biopic of Mister Rogers, but it turned out to be centered more on a journalist who was assigned to interview and profile him for an issue on heroes in Esquire magazine. (The script was “inspired” by…

The string of cancellations that crowded my afternoon undid several of my spring rituals–March Madness and Opening Day for the Red Sox, to name the two most significant. It looks like it will be a while before I get to use #itsnextyear as I post about whatever the Sox do that gives me indefatigable hope….