Paying Attention Again

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake. . . .Only that day dawns to which we are awake.” Henry David Thoreau Last June, I posted about paying attention, and I am writing about it again today. Have you heard the sayings that psychotherapists and ministers share what they need to hear and to [...]

Happy New Year!

The New Year is, of course, traditionally the time for making resolutions. Consequently, January 2nd is traditionally the day when we start breaking those resolutions. Strangely, it turns out that more often than not, we are very much the same people at the start of a new year that we were at the end of [...]

What a Day for a Daydream!

It turns out I’m not as good at daydreaming as I used to be. When I was about nine, my mother would have to physically rouse me from my bed, not because I was sleeping, but because I was spending happy hours imagining my life as Mrs. Paul McCartney. My fantasies involved boats, castles, me [...]

Love & Grief: Two Sides of the Same Coin

One night as the on-call hospital chaplain, I witnessed the end of three marriages, each representing over 50 years of love and struggle, as death claimed the husbands. The depth of grief of each wife haunted me for days. Was this the price of great love? Such great pain? This is what I have to look forward [...]

Voting as Spiritual Practice, as a Neighborly Act…

Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away. ~ Wendell Berry ~ On this eve of a national election, so many conversations begin with “well, depending on who wins the election, …” In our representative democracy, a lot does depend on who wins elections. Because of how the presidential election is decided, [...]

Fireworks

Truth be told, I don’t feel like writing a blog this morning. I just feel like watching Katy Perry and an 11 year old autistic girl named Jodi DiPiazza perform Perry’s song, “Fireworks,” over and over. Having watched it about eight times now—and forced everyone who has been near my Iphone or computer to do [...]

Thoughts on Death and Lasagna

Last night, as I lay dozing on the couch, I awakened with a start at 10:30 and jumped up. It was time, I suddenly knew, to make a pan of lasagna for a family where a death was imminent. Right now. Not in the morning, as I had planned. Now. As I went into the [...]

That’s What Bearing Witness Is…

Let go of what you know and honor what exists Son, that’s what bearing witness is Daughter, that’s what bearing witness is ~ David Shannon Bazan, Bearing Witness Less than 15 miles away from the city of New Orleans as the crow flies – or 25 miles if you drive along the every curving Mississippi [...]

Be Here Later, or Be There Now?

I finally cleaned the back yard the other day, a task I had spent several months avoiding. In fact, in about 90 minutes, I accomplished something that I had actively avoided for at least sixteen hours. I calculate those hours from the time I spent staring out the kitchen window, cursing the mess and myself [...]

Come In and Sing!

The National Cathedral in Reykjavík is a modest edifice, as far as cathedrals go, and despite the fact that I’ve passed by it at least a hundred times on my visits to Iceland, I had never stepped inside—until last month. I’m not entirely sure why. I have ventured inside dozens of other churches in the [...]