On Monday, we left the mainland of Scotland in our wake [always remembering, of course, that Scotland is not really a ‘mainland’, but part of an island] and turned our face toward Orkney, following the light north. We sailed through deep swells – and sunshine! Who would have guessed we would go north into warm(er) …
On 22 May, my husband and I said good-bye to our temporary home in Tramore and drove to Dublin, where we spent the night before taking the hovercraft to Wales the following day. We dropped our bags at the B and B and walked into the city center because May 22 also happened to be …
Caitlyn Jenner just graced the cover of Vanity Fair – and it was, indeed, a grace-filled gesture, sharing her transition from a male-bodied Olympic athlete to the woman she knew herself to be. Caitlyn’s decision to reveal her new name and her new person was a very public risk…just as the transition itself was a …
One of the most beloved books of my middle-school years was Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, written by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimborough about the hilarious (at least in retrospect) trip they made to Europe following their graduation from Bryn Mawr in 1920. Which, if you have never read it, is still quite …
A few days ago I picked up an intriguing book at the library called Who Are You? 101 Ways of Seeing Yourself by Malcolm Godwin. Godwin taps all kinds of different cultures to look through familiar and unfamiliar lenses at our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being. My beloved husband took one look at the …
I was born not far from the ocean and have lived most of my life within an hour of one of the two huge bodies of water that give our planet its distinctive color from space. Anyone who has spent any length of time along a coastline knows that drowning is not something that happens …
In the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice is upon us. On December 21 at 4:03 MST, the North Pole reaches the point at which it is tilted furthest – 23.5 degrees – away from the Sun. One breath later, we begin to tilt slowly back toward the light, toward warmth, toward longer days and shorter …
About two years after my husband and I began our co-ministry in western Massachusetts, I decided to put a small garden out in front of the Parsonage in which we lived. What I had not realized was how big the front yard was, and the garden I envisioned (and originally planted) looked like someone …
This was first posted on 2 April 2014– before many of you were reading my blogs. During my retreat, I am taking the time to revisit some of the exercises that have been most fruitful in my own spiritual journey and to see what new revelations might appear. As we lean into the season that …
Backstory, Part 1: On Sunday, the minister invited us to think of the difference between ‘God-shaped’ as an adjective and ‘God-shaped’ as a verb. This is a differentiation well worth pursuing. Backstory, Part 2: I was absolutely enchanted the first time I saw a word cloud and discovered how they work; they can unfold the …