Just over a month ago, I turned to my husband and said, “I can’t imagine being part of a religious tradition where thousands of people die on pilgrimage.” The reports from Mecca every year touch a primal fear in me. I hate crowds. Even in high school and college I wouldn’t go to concerts because …
The headlines are enough to make even the most relentless optimist despair. Those of us who are trying to ignore world news still find it seeping in around the edges while we stand in lines at the grocery store or bank or post office and listen to the conversations around us. So, as we hurtle …
Someone recently remarked – with what sounded like a good deal of irritation – that the little slips of paper in fortune cookies are no longer fortunes, they are aphorisms. Personally, I hadn’t noticed because I am still carrying the fortune (not aphorism) I received five years ago that promises, ‘You will receive some prestigious …
Think for a moment about the photos you throw away…versus the ones you put in a photo album, or reprint as your annual holiday card, or frame and hang on your wall. I’ve been going through photos this week. Our daughter needs some for a project she is doing with me. My computer wallpaper needs …
Spoiler Alert: On Wednesday, I was feeling tender and pastoral and the blog that day reflected that. Today I am cranky and channeling one of the Hebrew prophets…so read further at your own risk. I would like to suggest in the strongest possible terms without actually resorting to profanity that any- and everyone of us …
The full moon last night was a Blue Moon (as in the phrase ‘once in a blue moon’). I have used that expression since I first heard it from my grandmother when I was a little girl and I even know what it means. It is the second full moon in a calendar month. Well, …
As I am collecting our far-flung possessions to pack for the antepenultimate time (how often do you get a chance to use that word?) — for the trip from Edinburgh to London, I am trying to collect my thoughts, as well. As I indicated in a recent blog, I have not – so far, at …
In past years, when I was actually tending a sizable (physical) garden, I would spend weeks carefully selecting what I wanted to grow. I would place my orders and eagerly start my seed flats. I would get a jump on the season by turning over the soil, turning under the winter compost. Then I would …
I believe I have mentioned more than once that shortly after we return from sabbatical – while we are still in a “journeying lightly” emotional space – we will be engaging in the process Marie Kondo outlines in her book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. With this firmly in mind, I have still …
My priceless son-in-law was due to travel to Nepal sometime around May 12 as part of a geological research team, exploring rock formation and tectonic plate shift in that area of the world. By sheer happenstance he is still safe in the United States while the world watches in horror what happens when one of …