Three Friends, Three Books

This post will be a departure from my “this in contrast to that” theme. The heat and humidity have had a warping effect, and so I might as well bend my own rules. What I’m setting out to do here is offer up, for your consideration, a few recently published works of fiction — first novels — by writers I am honored to know. My peeps are out there on the field, so you could say that I’m taking up … Read More

Looking Forward and Also Remembering

This time, keeping to my theme of how two very different things can be adjacent to one another, often challenging us to make sense of their relationship, will be an easy task. If only I didn’t feel so walloped by recent events in my life, I’d have enough energy left over to try to capture it all. But there’s really no need for that; I’ll just let the basics speak for themselves. In the past six weeks, I’ve experienced three … Read More

We Can’t All Be Expert Gear-Shifters

Sometimes a glaring contrast can be the vast difference between the skill level we want and the skill level we have. Yes, we can practice and practice — an instrument, a sport, say — and then often make remarkable progress. Other times, though, if the skill is not something we absolutely must have, if gaining it doesn’t radically enhance our daily lives, we’re wise to shrug off our crumminess, cope with this particular area of mediocrity, thereby freeing ourselves to … Read More

Coronation, Church Conference, Consecration…and Career Fair?

Last time I met you here, it was “Almost Easter.” Now, grass is growing in uneven clumps on the still-soggy ground, buds are opening, birds are busy twittering and scratching around in the piles of old leaves and sticks which we’ve made, black flies and ticks are out, lacrosse balls and baseballs are flying, and what was early Spring has become mid-Spring. Soon enough…well, you know. I launched this blog, many moons ago, with a theme of “this right next … Read More

Almost Easter

A good friend of mine, way out in the Pacific Northwest, said something like this on the phone last night: “Sometimes it feels more right to say, ‘Here we are!’ than ‘Here we go!’ ” I think her point was that it can startle us to recognize that we’re actually in a time that we might have preferred to think would remain in our future. Or, said otherwise, we may not want to see ourselves as old, but we’re damn … Read More

Little Delights and Simple Pleasures

Life sure can wallop us, mercilessly, in a way that says, “Better find a way to deal with this pain, because you can’t wish it away.” Either we’re stinging from that kind of wallop right now, recovering from one we’ve already had, or cognizant that we will be walloped sometime in the future — we just don’t know when or how hard it will be. And yet, every morning brings possibilities for the discovery of new joys. Here in New … Read More

From Grief, Goodness

“She said her son was a beautiful soul, and something good will come of this.” That’s a sentence from President Biden’s State of the Union speech, referring to what RowVaughn Wells said about the brutal death of her son, Tyre Nichols. If we can act collectively and responsibly to bring about the kind of policing reforms that will prevent this from happening again, then that will be the “something good.” For this young man’s mother, who has just begun her … Read More

Starting the New Year with Pelicans

Not intending any offense to Granite Staters, I must say that New Hampshire has never, in the almost-a-decade since I’ve lived here, looked so grey (and I don’t mean the average age of residents, although that’s probably true, too) as it did this past week. Heading to school one morning, I saw one edge of Turkey Pond looking like this. It’s peaceful enough in its drabness, and there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with New England being dressed in leaden skies in … Read More

Starry Skies, but Hold the Ugly Sweaters

It’s that time of year when knowing your priorities is extra-important. Will you dash around trying to accomplish everything, meeting expectations you’ve set for yourself about how much you can do and also how well you’ll pull it off? Will you go along with cultural norms just because they’re out there? Or, will you be content with not focusing on either the quantity or the quality of stuff (whatever you perform, whatever you wrap up, etc.) and instead try to … Read More

Waiting: Like It Or Not

If it’s the beginning of December, it must be Advent. And if it’s Advent, and you happen to be married to a bishop, you understand that it’s a time of preparation. (This reminds me of those delightful picture books, by Laura Numeroff, that I used to read to our kids. The first one was If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. She really knew how to write a page-turner.) Back to Advent now. You get the wreath with the four … Read More

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