Staying Steadfast to a Wobbly Pitch
Before Thanksgiving may seem like a strange time to be thinking about baseball, but the story of R.A. Dickey, this year’s just-announced National League Cy Young Award winner, has gripped me. I took a little detour recently from my main responsibilities (which include guiding students through more gothic horror fiction, participating in my school’s surprising move to a whole new building, looking at more houses as well as trying to follow the itinerary of a new bishop) to read Dickey’s … Read More
A Time to Run, But Not Always to Race
Last Sunday, not long after slipping into a pew in Peterborough, I watched my husband prepare communion – as I have on many previous Sundays. This time, however, my ears pricked up as he said, hands held high with host, a Bible verse that I don’t think I’d ever heard during this part of the service: “…let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. “ (Hebrews 12:1-2) This got my attention for a few reasons. First, … Read More
A Storm Over Intentions
Mother Nature apparently shares my interest in things colliding, because, as I write, we’re about to get walloped with Hurricane Sandy from the South Meets Winter Storm from the West Meets Arctic Chill from the North. Maybe, by the time you read this, it’ll all be over, however it was. And you probably think I’m crazy for writing anything at the moment. But I’m safe inside with my dog at my side, and my various family members are all — … Read More
So Many Religions, So Little Time
Years ago, when a classmate of mine at Bread Loaf was trying to explain his reason for not having a paper ready, he said something to the professor like “The air traffic controllers’ strike really bums me out.” I wish I had as creative an excuse; mine has more to do with the mundanity of getting in grades, prepping a house for a showing, and taking a son on a road trip. Just the usual, really. But amidst it all … Read More
A Wife or a Disciple, or Both?
So I’m guessing that if Jesus did in fact have a wife, she would have had to do a lot of moving around; so much, in fact, that she probably was late with a blog entry once in a while, too. OK, so she probably didn’t have quite as much stuff to pack up each time as we do now, what with Jesus always reminding his followers to leave their bags and just bring a staff. (Funny how I don’t … Read More
Think of it as a Picnic
I know that many of you are probably hoping to hear what it’s been like for the Bishop Coadjutor (can you tell if I spelled that right?) up in his new office, but it’s just too soon – and would also be too presumptuous – for me to comment on any of that activity from afar. And, since we haven’t yet sold our current house or found a new one in New Hampshire, I am, in a way, “afar.” But … Read More
Finding A Way In….Two Years Later
This week I’m doing something unusual – posting an essay I wrote two years ago. As I watched my husband pack up his things to begin his new position in New Hampshire, I realized that there was at least one thing he wouldn’t be able to bring with him: the labyrinth that lies quietly in our back woods. What follows is my account of the time when he made it. This is considerably longer than my other blog posts, and … Read More
Going to College – For Real, This Time
I’m feeling a little nostalgic this week — about our 18 year-old daughter who is pushing off from home and, silly as it might sound, about this nine month old blog, too. The former child runs on strong legs and is ready for bigger fields; the latter is still crawling and has an uncertain future…but has at least made it this far. My very first post here last November, also published as a column in our local paper, was called … Read More
Take That Back, Please
Is it ever better to go backwards than forwards? This has been a question swinging up and down, back and forth, hither and yon in my mind over the past week. If the Consecration made our summer a bit unusual, the fact that I needed to be at school on my birthday did too. Mid-August always finds our family up in northern Vermont, and my husband traditionally plans a lovely party for me there. This week, however, I needed to … Read More
Number 1067, Number 10, and Number 1
OK, so this better be good. I can’t promise you anything, really, except that it will be true. And that I’ll finally be able to work in the Olympics next time. During our 21 years of marriage, there has never been a week when I was more acutely conscious of my identity as a pastor’s wife than this past week, when I became a bishop’s wife. To be precise, wife of the bishop who has been assigned Number 1067 in the … Read More