Magical Memoir Moments
Our Callings, Our Bodies, and Our Lodestar Books
Do you have a lodestar book? One that explains your self to yourself? One that you can read in any season of life and it still instructs, comforts, and inspires you? Like this one? I have read this book at least four times. I come back to some passages nearly every year. This novel tells…
Silence, Solitude, and Aging: A Winter Revery
This is the season of silence and endurance, deep freeze of the soul. I have been writing haiku with photos, praying one pearl at a time. As I gaze outside, I read John O’Donohue’s Walking in Wonder The idea of my clay connected to my sister, the mountain! Reminded me of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins….
Purging and Pruning Post Epiphany
Yesterday, the Day of Epiphany, fell on a Sunday, and a little group from our church jumped into conversation about the wise men, the star, and global warming, in response to the sermon. So, I was receptive when my friend Richard posted a wonderful epiphany reflection, which begins this way: For this Time Being –…
“The Nancy Drew of Joy:” A Seasonal Meditation
In a dark time, a candle ignites hope, sparking the advent of joy. How are you spending these short days and long nights? We celebrated our family Christmas during Thanksgiving week this year, which means the gifts and feasts came early. Now there is time to rest, read, go to concerts, light candles, and reflect….
An Election Day Meditation: Voting, Praying, Singing
It’s a grey day in the Shenandoah Valley. The scene in front of me looks upside down. The clouds are lower than the mountains. The transition between sky and land, heaven and earth, is not clear. Threshold spaces are like this. Neither one nor the other. Neither yet both. Our country, too, stands at a…
How to Live: Prophets, Poets, and Mystics
After one returns from pilgrimage, the sense of living inside a movie recedes. Then certain remembered single images stand out. For me, Father Michael Rodgers, Glendalough pilgrimage guide, quiet in demeanor, kindly in manner, yet passionate in his love for his special place stood out. How many times had he told the story of St….
The Return Stage of Pilgrimage: Reflecting on Celtic Spirituality
I’m back in the red chair looking out at fog-covered mountains, feeling grateful. The dire hurricane forecasts at end of our trip to Ireland gave us pause, but all of us eighteen pilgrims on Tour I of Eklectic Pilgrimages to Ireland have returned safely. Thanks be to God. Our itinerary kept us stepping. In fact, one day…
Slipper’d Pantaloons: A Parody of the Seven Stages of Man
My friend Tina took me to the theatre to celebrate my birthday. As we sat in the balcony, I eagerly anticipated Jacques’ famous speech, one I first heard live on the Goshen College stage. Do you remember “The seven stages of man” speech? Here is an old movie version that uses subtitles so you can…
My Seventieth Summer, “O Lord, to look at the clouds.”
My dear daughter-in-law gave me a copy of this book as a Christmas present last year. I’ve been chewing it slowly, lectio divina-style. Right now, the summer poems are calling to me. You probably know the most famous one, “The Summer Day.” Here’s another, called “While I Am Writing a Poem to Celebrate Summer, the…
The Celestial Openness of the Child’s Mind: Lydia’s Breakthrough, Our Goodbye
Those Romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, got it right. We do arrive on this earth trailing clouds of glory! For the last eleven months, Stuart and I have had a front-row seat as Lydia exuberantly shared with us the trailing clouds of glory she brought with her from birth. Today neuroscientists are using the term “celestial…