Magical Memoir Moments

Owen and Julia in a climbing tree near the riverflront in Lisbon.

A Grand Spring Break: Portugal, Days 1-5

Here in Lisbon, tonight, we are putting up our feet in the hotel suite living room after a day of walking 15,000 steps. We have seen so many sites and listened to so many stories, it’s hard to choose a story to tell you, dear reader. We will be here two more days before flying…

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Lancaster County "girl group" about 1944. My mother, Barbara Ann Hess, is front and center, holding hands and looking right into the camera.

Take Your Mother to Work Day: Episode One

You’ve heard of Take Your Daughter to Work Day? Recently, I flipped the script and asked my daughter if she was up for Take Your Mother to Work Day. She was! But before we go to work, a story. Once upon a time there was a girl who loved to shop for clothes with her…

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Juneteenth: A Black Holiday With a Place for White People Also?

Positioned between two worlds of Harrisonburg, VA, and Lititz, PA, right now, I am sitting in Lititz, listening and watching virtual performances of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival broadcast from Harrisonburg. Under the direction of Amanda Gookin, the festival is both in-person and virtual as the nation emerges from the isolation of a pandemic.  …

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The Washington Monument as seen from under the Museum of African American HistoryThe

The Means of Saving Us: One Good, Sacred, Memory

We live in partisan times in America. Depending on where we stand politically, we see different problems, but everyone seems to agree we have problems. Serious problems. We yearn for peace. Yet peace is not possible without “liberty and justice for all.” Or, to use the framework that John Paul Lederach teaches, derived from Psalm…

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“Have a Good Time with Your Friends:” A Granddaughter Milestone on the Brink

She’s two and a half and heading full speed toward three years old. She’s on the brink of everything. Just before Christmas, she helped put up lights and pine garland on her porch. She couldn’t stop saying her favorite new word: “energy!” By the time she arrived at our house for the Christmas holiday, Lydia…

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My computer wears a new sticker.

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…

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Lydia is wearing a Hess family heirloom dress at least 100 years old.

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…

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My mother on her 91st birthday on February 27, 2018. Photo by Doris Dagen.

The 200-Year Present: A Way to Lengthen Your Days

Last week I spoke at a gathering of educators at Berry College. The subject was “Called to Tell Our Stories.” As I prepared my speech, reviewing my own life for stories that might connect with the audience, I remembered the visit of Elise Boulding to Goshen College in the 1980s. Boulding had a great impact…

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Restaurant shenanigans.

Laughing Every Day: The September Report

 “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” That Proverb poetry branded itself in my spirit. I’ve always loved a good laugh, whether a chuckle or a guffaw. According to the latest edition of the AARP magazine, “Laughing can give your immune system a temporary boost, ease pain, relax arteries and offer your torso a…

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At the Peterhof in St. Petersberg, Russia. A magical moment.

What Remains: The Most Lasting Images from 24 Days in the Baltic Region . . . And a New Chapter Begins

Travel brings many rewards and pleasures too obvious to mention. But it also contains a danger: too many miles covered too quickly can all blur at the beginning and fade at the end. That’s one reason to take pictures. Looking back over the entire set of 340 photos taken over 24 days of travel, some…

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