Finding Your Own Art

One thing that I’ve learned through marriage (the list is long) is that doing/ creating/ practicing some kind of art in your own individual way helps each partner to flourish, alone and also together. Nothing Really, or Really Something Yesterday at school, by the downstairs water fountain, I had a brief conversation with an 11th grader whom I had just met when I came into her English class. I went partly to give them a brush-up on the “Xello” platform … 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

Welcoming Bad Bunny Into Our Household

Just as millions of Christians worldwide start up the on-ramp towards Easter Sunday, a certain mega-star has joined — in a manner of speaking — this particular clergy family. If you don’t know him (and that can be forgiven), here are some facts: he has been the most streamed artist of the year on Spotify, his genre is called reggaeton, he is huge throughout the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and also in New York City (where this photo was taken, during a … Read More

Turning Back the Years

The title I just chose reminds me of a hit song back in the mid-80’s by the group Simply Red — you may remember it — called “Holding Back the Years.” That had a mournful sound to it, swirling with a kind of regret; I’m aiming for a more cheerful tone here. Sometimes the best presents are gifts that, in a certain way, give you back something you once had. Nobody (except maybe in a movie) can peel back the … Read More

On the Open Road

What with all this he-said-she-said stuff swirling around, maybe it will come as a relief to read something about not much more than the joy of charging down a highway in a convertible with the radio playing loud. After a church service, no less. My hair got all mussed up, but nobody minded.     It’s a little late, but this will also be my own personal offering to the Queen of Soul. I was in Philadelphia, not Detroit; riding … Read More

A New Year and an Old Hymn

Isn’t it wonderful how some of us can listen, or view, something and pronounce it a triumph and then others of us can have the exact same sensory experience and call it a travesty? Don’t worry, I am not taking the impending Inauguration as my subject. That would be a room-clearer for sure. Lo and behold, after the Christmas Hymns and Carols have been put away, and we’ve sung as much of “Auld Lang Syne” as we could remember (a … Read More

Trading One Kind of Tumult for Another: The Beatles as Antidote

As the World Series gets underway, it’s as good a time as any to celebrate the idea of fervor, in a variety of forms. I propose to start with baseball, move gingerly through politics to rock & roll, and end up at religion. Are you with me? Defined as “an intense and passionate feeling,” the word can definitely go either way—that is, there can be a kind you like and another kind you can’t stand. The fervor that Chicago fans … Read More

Wishing I Were There

My husband, lucky duck, got to go to this place a few days ago. Due to an overwhelming feeling of Pride and Joy, not to mention a connection across several states states with My Guy, I’m writing an unorthodox blog this week.Wait, have I ever been orthodox? Rob is out in Detroit with the House of Bishops for a whole week. You can read the detailed daily briefings here. My own topic, commencing shortly, will be something else entirely. I’m straying … Read More

Politics, Faith…and Mozart?

In electing someone for President of the United States, do we need to check off the “Got Religion” box? Does checking this box provide reassurance that this candidate will keep us close to all that is good and just and even perhaps uplifting to the soul? I doubt it. On his 260th birthday several days ago, Mozart almost made me forget that we’re slogging through a campaign season with plenty of talk about “faith” but mostly devoid of anything we … Read More

In Praise of Mud

Whoever said that Mud Season in New England goes from this time to that time and then is over definitely never lived here…or at least not near our back field. It was soaked when we arrived about a year ago, and it’s soaked again now. People in California, having to debate the rightness or wrongness of watering their lawns, would be envious. Besides seeing no end in sight to boot-wearing time, we’re getting plenty of opportunity to contemplate the many … Read More

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