My Best Work Happens When My Mind Feels Quiet Over the past two years, I increasingly notice something: I do much of my best work when I’m not really thinking. Or rather, since the mind is a thinking machine that rarely stops, I should say I do my best work when my mind feels like I’m not really thinking. When my mind feels quiet. The Difference Between Quiet Mind and Mental Noise This is what I don’t mean by “not... Read more
“But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be if it isn’t a prayer?” —Mary Oliver (from “I Happened To Be Standing”) The Wren Who Changed Everything One day in late 2017, I sat writing. On this morning, I rode a fretful moment, the worry du jour being my first novel, Wren, for which I wasn’t finding a publisher. The challenge of publishing a first novel as an unknown literary novelist with no platform was weighing on me that day. Should I check in... Read more
Almost a month ago, I decided for this year’s Lent to dive into Spanish practice and “consciousness hygiene,” and an update on the latter seems in order. For the sake of brevity, I’ll focus on just one area. Early in the effort to spiff up my consciousness, I realized I needed to log off Facebook and Instagram—and to do this as part of my deep dive into consciousness hygiene, rather than as Lenten “giving something up,” which is not how... Read more
Lost in Translation: My Spanish Misadventures For some time, I’ve had good intentions to practice more Spanish—which I know marginally, though my speaking skills lag. In the presence of native speakers, I clam up. At the Spanish-language church I serve, I recently told someone “I have a man,” instead of “I am hungry”; and about a plate of chicken mole, “I’m going to drink it when I get home.” Every time I make such a gaffe, I leave the encounter... Read more
Why 2016 Feels Like the End of the Before-Times Yesterday I had to search “What is the 2016 Trend?” because I’m so untrendy (and not a TikTok or Twitter user). What I learned is that using or resharing memes, photos, or styles from 2016 has become popular as a nostalgic look back to simpler times when people in the US had not turned against each other to the current extent and were not where we are today. Why 2016? I... Read more
A Return to a Time of Worry This week I was inadvertently transported back to post-Easter 2009 when I was—as now—mired in sticky, drowning worry. At that time, I found myself waiting for the return of my undocumented boyfriend (later husband, then after our separation, close friend), who had gone to his home country to be with family after the sudden death of his mother. His avenues for return to Oregon ranged from bad to worse. For days as he... Read more
We do not experience our lives apart from the stories we tell of our lives. Our stories—how we make sense of our lives—are all that we have. Because there is no separating ourselves and story, I would go so far as to say: We human beings are story. I don’t say this as a way to reduce human life in some way, but rather as a way to elevate story. Because I believe story warrants such elevation. It’s a challenge... Read more
The Subversive Witness of Christmas Often at Christmas I share a series of articles about how the Christmas stories (birth narratives) in the gospels subvert the dominating powers of their day. Never in my lifetime has the subversive challenge of those accounts been more salient for Americans—as an inept leader empowers his administration to attempt overthrow of our democracy. Anyone interested in reading those articles can find them HERE and HERE. Weary Nation, Weary Soul What I instead want to... Read more
“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” —Berthold Auerbach Rethinking What Prayer Means As the new year turns, I am rethinking prayer. By this I don’t mean that I started saying prayers differently. I mean that what prayer is to me has changed. Really, decades have passed since I “said prayers” unless in a group setting—mainly because, for me, formulating words has tended to get in the way. In lieu of this, I have tried either... Read more
Admitting the Weight We Carry During a recent deep conversation with a friend, we both admitted to struggling mightily with shame. As it turns out, both of us would appear put-together and successful. We both care about making a positive impact. Yet secretly we shlep around an amount of shame that is, in many ways, crippling and painful. According to some social scientists, shame can be deeply ingrained and hard to off-load—no matter how desperately we want to be rid... Read more
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