One of the many things I find endearing about my husband is that he thanks me when I do the most ordinary things—roll up the socks, sort the mail, pick up the groceries I always pick up. Kale again—thank you. Some of the tasks I do for our mutual well-being are simply my part of a fair distribution of labor, part of the rhythm of shared life, not unusual gestures of kindness, simply doing my part, as he does his.... Read more

“Love changes, and in change is true,” Wendell Berry writes in his lovely poem, “The Dance.” The line articulates what most recognize who have maintained long, loving relationships with spouses, friends, children. Faithfulness is a much more nuanced and lively virtue than simply sticking with or sticking to or sticking it out. It is much more like what John Ciardi describes in his poem, “Men Marry What They Need: I Marry You”:   . . .   I marry you,... Read more

I know people who have lived all their lives in one place. I’m not one of them. I’ve moved from one coast to the other and up and down California in my peregrinations, sometimes looking with envy at those who have done less packing and more planting. Either, of course can be “a path with a heart.” The adage sometimes attributed to Confucius, “Wherever you go, there you are,” offers an oddly tautological reminder to pause regularly, look around, take... Read more

Two of our dear friends get up every day and read Al Jazeera along with the New York Times. Another gets his morning news from the British-based Guardian, another from Der Spiegel, and another from The Independent, because Robert Fisk seems to him one of the most reliable journalists alive. We feel that way about Amy Goodman, whose commitment to showing up in dangerous places and reporting stories or points of view that are omitted or underrepresented on networks controlled... Read more

Now here’s an unpopular word. Sounds a little like prune or prude. Puritans used to name their daughters Prudence. It’s not hard to imagine what middle- schoolers now would do to those hapless girls. But I learned to appreciate the social, musical, and emotional complexity of Puritan culture from a lively and wonderful professor who enabled us to imagine a people who might actually find something lovely and life-giving in the virtue of prudence. The word prudence comes from the Latin... Read more

When he was two or three, my grandson Matthew, now a skilled gymnast, would throw his whole body onto sofas, beds, piles of pillows, grassy slopes, or, sometimes, his large, patient dog in moments of complete delight. His heedless abandon was a little nerve-wracking to witness, though he rarely hurt himself. But the sheer physical joy he took in leaping, landing, rolling and laughing was a pleasure for all of us less daring onlookers. I remember Matthew’s flying leaps when... Read more

We live in an unfolding story. The plot thickens and turns. If we look back, we can see patterns emerging—themes, intersections, loops, paths not taken. The mystery and paradox of Advent lie in its emphasis on expectation: believers wait in “sure and certain hope” that what has happened will happen. What has been true will be true again, new every year, yet still to come, fact and promise. We live, as theologian Karl Barth put it, in the “already but... Read more

“Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” “All the fun is there, in the simple life!” “Less is more.” “Live simply that others may simply live.” “Consider the lilies of the field . . . .” Every faith tradition and a wide range of secular writers teach the wisdom of simplicity. The popularity of periodicals like Simple Living and Yes!, and of books like The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying... Read more