Over winter solstice, I watched my father tending to KG, his first grandchild, with unconditional love. We had just celebrated her one year birthday and she was beginning to cruise around with increased confidence. As she found herself standing in front of my mother’s highly breakable ceramic nativity scene, KG began to methodically hand each figure to my father. He gratefully received them from her and moved them to another shelf. My sister, the mother of the much adored child... Read more
It’s supposed to be extremely cold this week, across the country. Many people we know are either reeling from it, talking about it, or bracing for it. Today is my partner’s day off, so we decided to go to Hawaii. By which I mean, we went to the “Hawaii” exhibit at the U.S. Botanic Garden in D.C., right by the Capitol Building. As we walked towards the Botanic Garden building, our Little Bean was pointing and pointing at the Capitol dome;... Read more
Early in ministry, there are skills to be learned. Preaching, counseling, the coffee-hour nod that says, “Yes, I’m listening,” even if it’s not true. Oh, and another one. Boredom. Overcoming it? No. Letting it pull you down below where you can breathe, and then holding you there. For hours. It’s important to know how to be there, in boredom. But for me, it was something that didn’t come easy. Some skills will take practice. Apprentice clergy go through a form... Read more
“We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” Isaac Newton About five years ago, I sat in church one cold and dreary Sunday morning while our pastor, Jennifer, talked about bridges. I came into church that morning a little lost, a little frustrated, and utterly exhausted. I didn’t really want to be there and I had been feeling so beaten down by life that I seriously doubted whether words of spiritual advice would make any difference whatsoever. Nonetheless, I... Read more
There was a time I thought I was in hell. It was Texas. I had dropped out of school and worked stocking bulk at a grocery store. As part of the job, before dawn once a month, they made us show up to get our morale boosted, which was seen as directly related to sales. Praise for good attitude. Hand-clapping. Prizes. It was noted when we hurt ourselves less on the job. Something like that—it was so long ago, it was... Read more
Sometimes it takes a lie to keep a religion. “It’s merely a game,” they told the priests–“how we fast for days, then cut a tall pole to climb. How we costume and dance. It means nothing, how we chant in circles and bleed chickens. How we climb and fly round and around in air. Come, watch–it’s only a game that gives us joy.” (And, they didn’t say, aloud, keeps the earth going well, returned to its right turning again.) “Merely... Read more
“The sun came up and five years gone. Life goes on…” – Brandi Carlile The older we get, a year becomes a smaller fraction of our life and therefore goes by faster. Or at least this seems to be the case. Brandi Carlile perfectly expresses what I’ve been feeling lately as I watch the days pass so quickly it feels like I’ve barely blinked and the weeks and months and, yes, the years zoom by. Some days I wake to... Read more
The daily paper on Christmas Eve carried this story: “Richard F. Morrow, 69, died when he was struck by a car in the village of Canton at 10:49 p.m. Mr. Morrow was pronounced dead at the scene. … Daniel W. Lester, 28, was driving northbound when he allegedly struck Mr. Morrow and fled, according to police. Police charged Mr. Lester with second-degree vehicular manslaughter, second-degree vehicular assault, leaving the scene of a fatal motor vehicle accident, driving while ability impaired... Read more
The cat snuggles down into my empty suitcase, out to fill for a trip. She knows something’s up. It’s a bed, she insists. A warm place, even an instrument of stasis. I let her nestle there, passing on to other bustling that needs doing, done. That I’ve lived out of a suitcase won’t perhaps make my obituary. Not much does. Yet it is the things we’ve lugged place to place; it is the cat let... Read more
One spring had me moonlighting on crisis response. I was far from an expert. Only shadowed whoever was on-call, to learn what to do when there’s nothing to be done. Mostly, the work took you out into homes where the children who are wanting to harm themselves live. But one Friday night, the call was from a prison several counties away, near the Kentucky line. It took forever to get there, and, when we got near, you could not see... Read more
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