Getting There from Here
When we come upon a contrast that’s an adjacency — two very different things side by side, co-existing in harmony — we can often find some delight in observing it or perhaps even living in it. When, on the other hand, we see or experience a contrast that resembles a head-on collision, it’s more likely to be scary than delightful. Such was the case several days ago when I, driving a recently repaired Honda Civic, rounded a curve on a … Read More
Seeking the Greatest While Feeling Ordinary
It doesn’t surprise me one bit, and I know it won’t surprise you either, that my recent Road Trip in the Heartland (starting and ending in Indianapolis) provided about as many examples of my beloved side-by-side contrasts as there were corn stalks needing rain. I’m choosing just one to think about right now. How close together or far apart are “extraordinary” and “ordinary”? How about “The Greatest” and “The Normal Person”? During our second stopover in Louisville, Kentucky, my son … Read More
Finding Myself in Conventions Everywhere
It’s Convention time, all across the land, and my son Henry and I are getting a pretty good education in what goes on at these multi-day, resource-intensive, hotel-based, name-tagged events as we take our road trip through several states. We started out in brutally hot Indianapolis with the Episcopalians, there assembled for General Convention (which occurs only every three years). Here we had some familiarity, of course, relating to our close relative who is directly involved — indeed, is being … Read More
What Animals Have Done For Me Lately
In keeping with my theme of contrasts, of one thing side by side with a very different thing, I offer an image: large dog lying near person working at sleek computer. Dog – a black one with tall ears – is patient for good long time, but eventually he rises and comes over to his person; wet nose pushing lovingly against person’s arm. Dog thereby interrupts person’s struggle to find the right words at the computer by saying, in his own … Read More
(Trying to Be) A Good Team in Transition
It’s been wonderful having our older son home with us for a couple of weeks, just in time for the NBA playoffs. I love joining him in front of the TV, partly just to be with him and partly because he’s kind to me when I ask him basketball questions. Recently I learned more about the bank shot (a jump shot that goes in off the backboard – embarrassing unless you call it first), about the foolishness of fouling a … Read More
Three is Not a Crowd
The theme of this blog, as I tried to articulate it in “A Welcome Message” at the top of the site, is about the richness of contrasting experiences. In that first essay, I offered the image of how a certain color of a wall meets a contrasting color of a ceiling….just two colors. Today, though, I’m imagining the juncture of two walls – each with a different color, unusual as that may be –meeting that same ceiling: three instead of … Read More
Our Vocabularies, Ourselves
So now it’s official: I’m not quite the Bishop’s Wife yet because he’s not quite the Bishop of New Hampshire yet, but I am the Wife (I’ll keep the capital letter, thank you very much) of the Bishop Coadjutor Elect, and – however you call it – the past week has been an unusual one in the life of this family. The flurry of articles in newspapers, as well as the blurbs on local radio and television stations, led to … Read More
To Facebook or Not To Facebook
We have a kind of a mix-up going on in our marriage: my husband, the introvert, is encouraging me, the extrovert, to follow his lead and get a Facebook account. I’m on the Facebook Fence. Talk about turning the tables. For as long as we’ve been together, I’ve been the one planning most of our get-togethers with friends in the here and now and emphasizing the importance of keeping in touch with people from way back. It’s true that he … Read More
If the Spirit Moves You
When we have a “moving experience,” it usually means we are enriched by it in some way — affected emotionally, even pulled to a place where new vistas open up for us. The actual experience of moving, however, is usually different: especially when it’s a whole family doing the re-locating, there is inevitably a feeling of loss mixed in with an anticipation of new opportunities and adventures. Since my husband was named one of three nominees to become Bishop of … Read More
Transported in Time
Do we remain ourselves as the years, like waves, lap up on the shore or do we become different people over the course of a decade, half a century, a century? A couple of recent family get-togethers have pulled me back in time, and as a result, on most days this spring I’m surrounded by memories — some of which are not even my own. It’s true that I was just about a complete stranger to organized religion when I … Read More