12 May 2023

Coronation, Church Conference, Consecration…and Career Fair?

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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
21 Aug 2022

One Canterbury Tale

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We’ve been back from England a week, and I still feel like one of those contraptions — a computer screen, mostly — that shows a spinning wheel and a message saying, “Still processing.” What a lot there was to take in, on many levels. And I sense there won’t be a moment anytime soon when I pronounce the operation fully complete. Trying to integrate what I experienced with what I already know about life in general and my life in … Read More
8 Jan 2019

I’ve Been Summoned

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You know how you can feel how you may be just one person, but you have a bunch of different identities? For me, these would include: In my current family, the mother who tries to stay up with current playlists In the neighborhood, the woman with that big black dog At my current school, the lady who is in the classroom the other lady used to be in In my family of origin, the little sister In my tennis group, … Read More
6 Jul 2018

Ideas About God, and Plain Old Work Too

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Just as I enter into a lovely time of not working, I see examples of work everywhere. It must be a sign that this vacation can’t last long. Since I’m not accompanying my husband to the 10-day long, give or take a few hours, Episcopal Convention in Texas, but will be partly with him in spirit, I thought it would be a good time to pull out a book by Karen Armstrong that’s been on my shelf for a while. … Read More
21 Apr 2017

Across the Fields on Easter Morning

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One of my favorite highway signs has always been “Merge” because it’s usually wonderful when different lanes or people or traditions or what-have-you can flow together.     Off the road, I had an experience over the weekend that brought into the present elements of a past I never even knew. Since Easter is all about rejuvenation, I tried something new this time. Instead of dressing up and getting in the car with family members (one of whom would be … Read More
5 Feb 2017

On Super Bowl Sunday, Mind Your Soup

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On Super Bowl Sunday, or on any other day for that matter, do you prefer to keep politics, religion and sports separate — like food items not touching on a plate—or do you like the mélange of tastes that comes when they’re all swirling around together? Seems to me that there are really good kinds of soups, the broth-based ones with wholesome ingredients that bring comfort on cold days; and then the other kind that could, with the right ingredients … Read More
27 Jan 2017

Just the Facts Please, Hold the Bravado

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“Alternative beliefs” I can buy, but “alternative facts” ? The landscape is shifting, for sure, and my panorama is not what it used to be. Now, Truth has to go into battle with Falsehood on a daily basis. Contrasts and juxtapositions may be my bread and butter here, but I didn’t count on the kind that threaten to pull the rug right out from under us. Essentially, I was pretty content trying to deepen my understanding of the different ways … Read More
8 Jan 2017

A New Year and an Old Hymn

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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
25 Oct 2016

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

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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
6 Oct 2016

October Devotion

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It’s October, the Red Sox are in the playoffs, Big Papi is heading out in a blaze of glory. What better time to reflect on the amazing and occasionally incongruous proximity, at least some of the time, between sports and religion? Any thinking person knows that one realm—the one containing huge stadiums, celebrity players, non-stop action, winners and losers, fans who go crazy for their teams, huge sums of money— is completely different from the other, sacred one. And yet, … Read More

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