food for thought the bible says we are made of dust . . . our bones, perhaps, but our spirits are made of the savor of sautéed garlic, the hope of rising dough, the laughter of bacon frying,the simmer of friendship— every morsel of our mortality a reminder to remember that we came from love…
On the cusp of the passing of an unfair and unjust tax bill, and a couple of days after the fifth anniversary of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary school, and on the morning that a suicide bomber killed twelve other people at a church in Pakistan, and in the light of what feels like…
affirmation let yes be our response to most any of life’s questions . . . not an answer as much as a declaration: yes to the chance, the hope, the opportunity, the near-miss, the adventure, the small gesture, the long shot, the promise, the possibility, the unexplainable, the failure, and even the grief: yes to…
far afield I wonder what the shepherds did the year after the angels came, or how the Magi went about their business when they got back home. Do you think the innkeeper woke in the night sometimes and opened the door, hoping for strangers, or sat out in the barn for no reason? How did…
As I read news reports of the election results in Alabama and the dumpster fire that passes for the United States Senate, it struck me that people in power are not interested in peace. They thrive on agitation, on disruption. We have become accustomed to the word grenades that get tweeted in the middle of…
I offer a poem of my own this evening. gift swap the Christmas party tradition for the confirmation classes is to sit in a circle and take turns choosing a gift, or taking one someone else has already opened and replacing it with another mystery. the giant jar of M&Ms changed hands four or five…
As the second week of Advent begins, the light moves from hope to peace. The practice of Advent grows out of church tradition rather than anything Jesus said or did, or anything in the Bible. I don’t know the story of how the weeks became identified—hope, peace, joy, and love—or how the order was chosen,…
As this first week of Advent draws to a close and we prepare to move form hope to peace, I offer these words from The Shape of a Pocket by John Berger: Hope, however, is an act of faith and has to be sustained by concrete actions. For example, the action of approach, of measuring…
This week I have been posting poems on my Facebook page. I started because a friend half-jokingly asked me to pick up where the Writer’s Almanac had left off, since it stopped when Garrison Keillor was fired after allegations of sexual harassment. That was a tough one for me. I started listening to A Prairie…
I spent some time looking for songs about hope in my music library tonight, in search of something beyond the songs I go to first. Here’s what I found. The first is from the Milk Carton Kids, who are sort of Simon and Garfunkel for a new century. Their song is called “Hope of a…