Singing Along the Journey

Author: @susansevier

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Unexpected roses…

We've had a wet month here in the mid-Atlantic region -- and today, in true form, it is almost 90 degrees.  So much for spring.  The lack of any kind of semi-normal seasonal transition time has made getting the garden cleaned and ready for summer quite a challenge.  There have been a number of days when I have weeded in a downpour and raced to pick up necessities at the garden store in between heavy showers. Hence, there has been little time to reflect and there has been no "this is spring, here is my garden metaphor of the year" post.  Today, however, is your lucky day (or not, depending…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

Love as strong as death…an Ash Wednesday meditation

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday.  And, many of us will find a church somewhere -- our own community or one unfamiliar to us  or a subway station or a street corner -- and take upon ourselves the mark of this day, the simple smear of burned palm leaves and oils that for centuries before has shown the wearer to be a Christian, someone entering the time of fasting and reflection that by our tradition is called Lent. And today, again, depending on where you mark the beginning of this journey, you may hear the words of the prophet Joel, who decries the darkness all around and calls the people to…
Read More

Present…

I am writing to you from an undisclosed location on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Okay, I'll confess -- I've just always wanted to say those words, "from an undisclosed location," because I have seen too many espionage movies and television shows. Truthfully, I am in the final hours of a twenty-four hour personal "retreat", an activity (or non-activity?) with which I have some discomfort.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of the contemplative life as portrayed in many of the wonderful books out there; most days I am so palpably aware of the presence of God in every fiber of my being that I can barely function according to…
Read More

Catching up on a little reading…

What good is a slightly rainy vacation if you can't catch up on a little reading?  And my backlog is substantial.  For example, when the new Diana Butler Bass work Grounded  magically appeared in my Kindle carousel the other day, I cringed as I remembered that I had not yet finished her last book, Christianity without Religion (2012).  I like to read an author's work sequentially whenever possible so that I can follow the thread of their thinking and theorizing.  That quirk in my personality meant that it was time to finish Christianity without Religion, so I picked it up again or I would never be able to begin reading Grounded, a book I have…
Read More

Pilgrim in place

No, I have not confused Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm referring to another kind of pilgrim. Today is the 12th Day of Christmas for those who observe such things.  I try, but somehow that observance becomes more difficult as the world begins its wind-up called "the new year."  People return to school and work, expectations start to rise, traffic patterns return to their pre-celebration insanity and winter settles in for the next few months of who-knows-what.  And here I sit in one of my favorite landscapes, looking out the window at the sunrise that will not stay long  because of a massive rain storm that is changing my plans for this…
Read More

Subversive Christmas…

I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It all began last year, when we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon for the Illuminations. You can read some of my thoughts about the true 12 days of Christmas (meaning the days following Dec. 25 and ending at Epiphany on January 6) in this article from the archives.  I haven't changed my thinking much since then, in fact, I am more than ever convinced that the truly subversive act of faith would be to observe these 12 days following our now mostly secular extravaganza known as the Christmas season (since, except for little subversive pockets of people, has…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Unexpected roses…

We've had a wet month here in the mid-Atlantic region -- and today, in true form, it is almost 90 degrees.  So much for spring.  The lack of any kind of semi-normal seasonal transition time has made getting the garden cleaned and ready for summer quite a challenge.  There have been a number of days when I have weeded in a downpour and raced to pick up necessities at the garden store in between heavy showers. Hence, there has been little time to reflect and there has been no "this is spring, here is my garden metaphor of the year" post.  Today, however, is your lucky day (or not, depending…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

Love as strong as death…an Ash Wednesday meditation

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday.  And, many of us will find a church somewhere -- our own community or one unfamiliar to us  or a subway station or a street corner -- and take upon ourselves the mark of this day, the simple smear of burned palm leaves and oils that for centuries before has shown the wearer to be a Christian, someone entering the time of fasting and reflection that by our tradition is called Lent. And today, again, depending on where you mark the beginning of this journey, you may hear the words of the prophet Joel, who decries the darkness all around and calls the people to…
Read More

Present…

I am writing to you from an undisclosed location on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Okay, I'll confess -- I've just always wanted to say those words, "from an undisclosed location," because I have seen too many espionage movies and television shows. Truthfully, I am in the final hours of a twenty-four hour personal "retreat", an activity (or non-activity?) with which I have some discomfort.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of the contemplative life as portrayed in many of the wonderful books out there; most days I am so palpably aware of the presence of God in every fiber of my being that I can barely function according to…
Read More

Catching up on a little reading…

What good is a slightly rainy vacation if you can't catch up on a little reading?  And my backlog is substantial.  For example, when the new Diana Butler Bass work Grounded  magically appeared in my Kindle carousel the other day, I cringed as I remembered that I had not yet finished her last book, Christianity without Religion (2012).  I like to read an author's work sequentially whenever possible so that I can follow the thread of their thinking and theorizing.  That quirk in my personality meant that it was time to finish Christianity without Religion, so I picked it up again or I would never be able to begin reading Grounded, a book I have…
Read More

Pilgrim in place

No, I have not confused Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm referring to another kind of pilgrim. Today is the 12th Day of Christmas for those who observe such things.  I try, but somehow that observance becomes more difficult as the world begins its wind-up called "the new year."  People return to school and work, expectations start to rise, traffic patterns return to their pre-celebration insanity and winter settles in for the next few months of who-knows-what.  And here I sit in one of my favorite landscapes, looking out the window at the sunrise that will not stay long  because of a massive rain storm that is changing my plans for this…
Read More

Subversive Christmas…

I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It all began last year, when we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon for the Illuminations. You can read some of my thoughts about the true 12 days of Christmas (meaning the days following Dec. 25 and ending at Epiphany on January 6) in this article from the archives.  I haven't changed my thinking much since then, in fact, I am more than ever convinced that the truly subversive act of faith would be to observe these 12 days following our now mostly secular extravaganza known as the Christmas season (since, except for little subversive pockets of people, has…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Unexpected roses…

We've had a wet month here in the mid-Atlantic region -- and today, in true form, it is almost 90 degrees.  So much for spring.  The lack of any kind of semi-normal seasonal transition time has made getting the garden cleaned and ready for summer quite a challenge.  There have been a number of days when I have weeded in a downpour and raced to pick up necessities at the garden store in between heavy showers. Hence, there has been little time to reflect and there has been no "this is spring, here is my garden metaphor of the year" post.  Today, however, is your lucky day (or not, depending…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

Love as strong as death…an Ash Wednesday meditation

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday.  And, many of us will find a church somewhere -- our own community or one unfamiliar to us  or a subway station or a street corner -- and take upon ourselves the mark of this day, the simple smear of burned palm leaves and oils that for centuries before has shown the wearer to be a Christian, someone entering the time of fasting and reflection that by our tradition is called Lent. And today, again, depending on where you mark the beginning of this journey, you may hear the words of the prophet Joel, who decries the darkness all around and calls the people to…
Read More

Present…

I am writing to you from an undisclosed location on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Okay, I'll confess -- I've just always wanted to say those words, "from an undisclosed location," because I have seen too many espionage movies and television shows. Truthfully, I am in the final hours of a twenty-four hour personal "retreat", an activity (or non-activity?) with which I have some discomfort.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of the contemplative life as portrayed in many of the wonderful books out there; most days I am so palpably aware of the presence of God in every fiber of my being that I can barely function according to…
Read More

Catching up on a little reading…

What good is a slightly rainy vacation if you can't catch up on a little reading?  And my backlog is substantial.  For example, when the new Diana Butler Bass work Grounded  magically appeared in my Kindle carousel the other day, I cringed as I remembered that I had not yet finished her last book, Christianity without Religion (2012).  I like to read an author's work sequentially whenever possible so that I can follow the thread of their thinking and theorizing.  That quirk in my personality meant that it was time to finish Christianity without Religion, so I picked it up again or I would never be able to begin reading Grounded, a book I have…
Read More

Pilgrim in place

No, I have not confused Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm referring to another kind of pilgrim. Today is the 12th Day of Christmas for those who observe such things.  I try, but somehow that observance becomes more difficult as the world begins its wind-up called "the new year."  People return to school and work, expectations start to rise, traffic patterns return to their pre-celebration insanity and winter settles in for the next few months of who-knows-what.  And here I sit in one of my favorite landscapes, looking out the window at the sunrise that will not stay long  because of a massive rain storm that is changing my plans for this…
Read More

Subversive Christmas…

I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It all began last year, when we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon for the Illuminations. You can read some of my thoughts about the true 12 days of Christmas (meaning the days following Dec. 25 and ending at Epiphany on January 6) in this article from the archives.  I haven't changed my thinking much since then, in fact, I am more than ever convinced that the truly subversive act of faith would be to observe these 12 days following our now mostly secular extravaganza known as the Christmas season (since, except for little subversive pockets of people, has…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Unexpected roses…

We've had a wet month here in the mid-Atlantic region -- and today, in true form, it is almost 90 degrees.  So much for spring.  The lack of any kind of semi-normal seasonal transition time has made getting the garden cleaned and ready for summer quite a challenge.  There have been a number of days when I have weeded in a downpour and raced to pick up necessities at the garden store in between heavy showers. Hence, there has been little time to reflect and there has been no "this is spring, here is my garden metaphor of the year" post.  Today, however, is your lucky day (or not, depending…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

Love as strong as death…an Ash Wednesday meditation

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday.  And, many of us will find a church somewhere -- our own community or one unfamiliar to us  or a subway station or a street corner -- and take upon ourselves the mark of this day, the simple smear of burned palm leaves and oils that for centuries before has shown the wearer to be a Christian, someone entering the time of fasting and reflection that by our tradition is called Lent. And today, again, depending on where you mark the beginning of this journey, you may hear the words of the prophet Joel, who decries the darkness all around and calls the people to…
Read More

Present…

I am writing to you from an undisclosed location on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Okay, I'll confess -- I've just always wanted to say those words, "from an undisclosed location," because I have seen too many espionage movies and television shows. Truthfully, I am in the final hours of a twenty-four hour personal "retreat", an activity (or non-activity?) with which I have some discomfort.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of the contemplative life as portrayed in many of the wonderful books out there; most days I am so palpably aware of the presence of God in every fiber of my being that I can barely function according to…
Read More

Catching up on a little reading…

What good is a slightly rainy vacation if you can't catch up on a little reading?  And my backlog is substantial.  For example, when the new Diana Butler Bass work Grounded  magically appeared in my Kindle carousel the other day, I cringed as I remembered that I had not yet finished her last book, Christianity without Religion (2012).  I like to read an author's work sequentially whenever possible so that I can follow the thread of their thinking and theorizing.  That quirk in my personality meant that it was time to finish Christianity without Religion, so I picked it up again or I would never be able to begin reading Grounded, a book I have…
Read More

Pilgrim in place

No, I have not confused Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm referring to another kind of pilgrim. Today is the 12th Day of Christmas for those who observe such things.  I try, but somehow that observance becomes more difficult as the world begins its wind-up called "the new year."  People return to school and work, expectations start to rise, traffic patterns return to their pre-celebration insanity and winter settles in for the next few months of who-knows-what.  And here I sit in one of my favorite landscapes, looking out the window at the sunrise that will not stay long  because of a massive rain storm that is changing my plans for this…
Read More

Subversive Christmas…

I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It all began last year, when we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon for the Illuminations. You can read some of my thoughts about the true 12 days of Christmas (meaning the days following Dec. 25 and ending at Epiphany on January 6) in this article from the archives.  I haven't changed my thinking much since then, in fact, I am more than ever convinced that the truly subversive act of faith would be to observe these 12 days following our now mostly secular extravaganza known as the Christmas season (since, except for little subversive pockets of people, has…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Unexpected roses…

We've had a wet month here in the mid-Atlantic region -- and today, in true form, it is almost 90 degrees.  So much for spring.  The lack of any kind of semi-normal seasonal transition time has made getting the garden cleaned and ready for summer quite a challenge.  There have been a number of days when I have weeded in a downpour and raced to pick up necessities at the garden store in between heavy showers. Hence, there has been little time to reflect and there has been no "this is spring, here is my garden metaphor of the year" post.  Today, however, is your lucky day (or not, depending…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

Love as strong as death…an Ash Wednesday meditation

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday.  And, many of us will find a church somewhere -- our own community or one unfamiliar to us  or a subway station or a street corner -- and take upon ourselves the mark of this day, the simple smear of burned palm leaves and oils that for centuries before has shown the wearer to be a Christian, someone entering the time of fasting and reflection that by our tradition is called Lent. And today, again, depending on where you mark the beginning of this journey, you may hear the words of the prophet Joel, who decries the darkness all around and calls the people to…
Read More

Present…

I am writing to you from an undisclosed location on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Okay, I'll confess -- I've just always wanted to say those words, "from an undisclosed location," because I have seen too many espionage movies and television shows. Truthfully, I am in the final hours of a twenty-four hour personal "retreat", an activity (or non-activity?) with which I have some discomfort.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of the contemplative life as portrayed in many of the wonderful books out there; most days I am so palpably aware of the presence of God in every fiber of my being that I can barely function according to…
Read More

Catching up on a little reading…

What good is a slightly rainy vacation if you can't catch up on a little reading?  And my backlog is substantial.  For example, when the new Diana Butler Bass work Grounded  magically appeared in my Kindle carousel the other day, I cringed as I remembered that I had not yet finished her last book, Christianity without Religion (2012).  I like to read an author's work sequentially whenever possible so that I can follow the thread of their thinking and theorizing.  That quirk in my personality meant that it was time to finish Christianity without Religion, so I picked it up again or I would never be able to begin reading Grounded, a book I have…
Read More

Pilgrim in place

No, I have not confused Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm referring to another kind of pilgrim. Today is the 12th Day of Christmas for those who observe such things.  I try, but somehow that observance becomes more difficult as the world begins its wind-up called "the new year."  People return to school and work, expectations start to rise, traffic patterns return to their pre-celebration insanity and winter settles in for the next few months of who-knows-what.  And here I sit in one of my favorite landscapes, looking out the window at the sunrise that will not stay long  because of a massive rain storm that is changing my plans for this…
Read More

Subversive Christmas…

I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It all began last year, when we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon for the Illuminations. You can read some of my thoughts about the true 12 days of Christmas (meaning the days following Dec. 25 and ending at Epiphany on January 6) in this article from the archives.  I haven't changed my thinking much since then, in fact, I am more than ever convinced that the truly subversive act of faith would be to observe these 12 days following our now mostly secular extravaganza known as the Christmas season (since, except for little subversive pockets of people, has…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Unexpected roses…

We've had a wet month here in the mid-Atlantic region -- and today, in true form, it is almost 90 degrees.  So much for spring.  The lack of any kind of semi-normal seasonal transition time has made getting the garden cleaned and ready for summer quite a challenge.  There have been a number of days when I have weeded in a downpour and raced to pick up necessities at the garden store in between heavy showers. Hence, there has been little time to reflect and there has been no "this is spring, here is my garden metaphor of the year" post.  Today, however, is your lucky day (or not, depending…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

Love as strong as death…an Ash Wednesday meditation

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday.  And, many of us will find a church somewhere -- our own community or one unfamiliar to us  or a subway station or a street corner -- and take upon ourselves the mark of this day, the simple smear of burned palm leaves and oils that for centuries before has shown the wearer to be a Christian, someone entering the time of fasting and reflection that by our tradition is called Lent. And today, again, depending on where you mark the beginning of this journey, you may hear the words of the prophet Joel, who decries the darkness all around and calls the people to…
Read More

Present…

I am writing to you from an undisclosed location on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Okay, I'll confess -- I've just always wanted to say those words, "from an undisclosed location," because I have seen too many espionage movies and television shows. Truthfully, I am in the final hours of a twenty-four hour personal "retreat", an activity (or non-activity?) with which I have some discomfort.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of the contemplative life as portrayed in many of the wonderful books out there; most days I am so palpably aware of the presence of God in every fiber of my being that I can barely function according to…
Read More

Catching up on a little reading…

What good is a slightly rainy vacation if you can't catch up on a little reading?  And my backlog is substantial.  For example, when the new Diana Butler Bass work Grounded  magically appeared in my Kindle carousel the other day, I cringed as I remembered that I had not yet finished her last book, Christianity without Religion (2012).  I like to read an author's work sequentially whenever possible so that I can follow the thread of their thinking and theorizing.  That quirk in my personality meant that it was time to finish Christianity without Religion, so I picked it up again or I would never be able to begin reading Grounded, a book I have…
Read More

Pilgrim in place

No, I have not confused Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm referring to another kind of pilgrim. Today is the 12th Day of Christmas for those who observe such things.  I try, but somehow that observance becomes more difficult as the world begins its wind-up called "the new year."  People return to school and work, expectations start to rise, traffic patterns return to their pre-celebration insanity and winter settles in for the next few months of who-knows-what.  And here I sit in one of my favorite landscapes, looking out the window at the sunrise that will not stay long  because of a massive rain storm that is changing my plans for this…
Read More

Subversive Christmas…

I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It all began last year, when we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon for the Illuminations. You can read some of my thoughts about the true 12 days of Christmas (meaning the days following Dec. 25 and ending at Epiphany on January 6) in this article from the archives.  I haven't changed my thinking much since then, in fact, I am more than ever convinced that the truly subversive act of faith would be to observe these 12 days following our now mostly secular extravaganza known as the Christmas season (since, except for little subversive pockets of people, has…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Unexpected roses…

We've had a wet month here in the mid-Atlantic region -- and today, in true form, it is almost 90 degrees.  So much for spring.  The lack of any kind of semi-normal seasonal transition time has made getting the garden cleaned and ready for summer quite a challenge.  There have been a number of days when I have weeded in a downpour and raced to pick up necessities at the garden store in between heavy showers. Hence, there has been little time to reflect and there has been no "this is spring, here is my garden metaphor of the year" post.  Today, however, is your lucky day (or not, depending…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

Love as strong as death…an Ash Wednesday meditation

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday.  And, many of us will find a church somewhere -- our own community or one unfamiliar to us  or a subway station or a street corner -- and take upon ourselves the mark of this day, the simple smear of burned palm leaves and oils that for centuries before has shown the wearer to be a Christian, someone entering the time of fasting and reflection that by our tradition is called Lent. And today, again, depending on where you mark the beginning of this journey, you may hear the words of the prophet Joel, who decries the darkness all around and calls the people to…
Read More

Present…

I am writing to you from an undisclosed location on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Okay, I'll confess -- I've just always wanted to say those words, "from an undisclosed location," because I have seen too many espionage movies and television shows. Truthfully, I am in the final hours of a twenty-four hour personal "retreat", an activity (or non-activity?) with which I have some discomfort.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of the contemplative life as portrayed in many of the wonderful books out there; most days I am so palpably aware of the presence of God in every fiber of my being that I can barely function according to…
Read More

Catching up on a little reading…

What good is a slightly rainy vacation if you can't catch up on a little reading?  And my backlog is substantial.  For example, when the new Diana Butler Bass work Grounded  magically appeared in my Kindle carousel the other day, I cringed as I remembered that I had not yet finished her last book, Christianity without Religion (2012).  I like to read an author's work sequentially whenever possible so that I can follow the thread of their thinking and theorizing.  That quirk in my personality meant that it was time to finish Christianity without Religion, so I picked it up again or I would never be able to begin reading Grounded, a book I have…
Read More

Pilgrim in place

No, I have not confused Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm referring to another kind of pilgrim. Today is the 12th Day of Christmas for those who observe such things.  I try, but somehow that observance becomes more difficult as the world begins its wind-up called "the new year."  People return to school and work, expectations start to rise, traffic patterns return to their pre-celebration insanity and winter settles in for the next few months of who-knows-what.  And here I sit in one of my favorite landscapes, looking out the window at the sunrise that will not stay long  because of a massive rain storm that is changing my plans for this…
Read More

Subversive Christmas…

I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It all began last year, when we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon for the Illuminations. You can read some of my thoughts about the true 12 days of Christmas (meaning the days following Dec. 25 and ending at Epiphany on January 6) in this article from the archives.  I haven't changed my thinking much since then, in fact, I am more than ever convinced that the truly subversive act of faith would be to observe these 12 days following our now mostly secular extravaganza known as the Christmas season (since, except for little subversive pockets of people, has…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Unexpected roses…

We've had a wet month here in the mid-Atlantic region -- and today, in true form, it is almost 90 degrees.  So much for spring.  The lack of any kind of semi-normal seasonal transition time has made getting the garden cleaned and ready for summer quite a challenge.  There have been a number of days when I have weeded in a downpour and raced to pick up necessities at the garden store in between heavy showers. Hence, there has been little time to reflect and there has been no "this is spring, here is my garden metaphor of the year" post.  Today, however, is your lucky day (or not, depending…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

Love as strong as death…an Ash Wednesday meditation

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday.  And, many of us will find a church somewhere -- our own community or one unfamiliar to us  or a subway station or a street corner -- and take upon ourselves the mark of this day, the simple smear of burned palm leaves and oils that for centuries before has shown the wearer to be a Christian, someone entering the time of fasting and reflection that by our tradition is called Lent. And today, again, depending on where you mark the beginning of this journey, you may hear the words of the prophet Joel, who decries the darkness all around and calls the people to…
Read More

Present…

I am writing to you from an undisclosed location on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Okay, I'll confess -- I've just always wanted to say those words, "from an undisclosed location," because I have seen too many espionage movies and television shows. Truthfully, I am in the final hours of a twenty-four hour personal "retreat", an activity (or non-activity?) with which I have some discomfort.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of the contemplative life as portrayed in many of the wonderful books out there; most days I am so palpably aware of the presence of God in every fiber of my being that I can barely function according to…
Read More

Catching up on a little reading…

What good is a slightly rainy vacation if you can't catch up on a little reading?  And my backlog is substantial.  For example, when the new Diana Butler Bass work Grounded  magically appeared in my Kindle carousel the other day, I cringed as I remembered that I had not yet finished her last book, Christianity without Religion (2012).  I like to read an author's work sequentially whenever possible so that I can follow the thread of their thinking and theorizing.  That quirk in my personality meant that it was time to finish Christianity without Religion, so I picked it up again or I would never be able to begin reading Grounded, a book I have…
Read More

Pilgrim in place

No, I have not confused Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm referring to another kind of pilgrim. Today is the 12th Day of Christmas for those who observe such things.  I try, but somehow that observance becomes more difficult as the world begins its wind-up called "the new year."  People return to school and work, expectations start to rise, traffic patterns return to their pre-celebration insanity and winter settles in for the next few months of who-knows-what.  And here I sit in one of my favorite landscapes, looking out the window at the sunrise that will not stay long  because of a massive rain storm that is changing my plans for this…
Read More

Subversive Christmas…

I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It all began last year, when we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon for the Illuminations. You can read some of my thoughts about the true 12 days of Christmas (meaning the days following Dec. 25 and ending at Epiphany on January 6) in this article from the archives.  I haven't changed my thinking much since then, in fact, I am more than ever convinced that the truly subversive act of faith would be to observe these 12 days following our now mostly secular extravaganza known as the Christmas season (since, except for little subversive pockets of people, has…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Unexpected roses…

We've had a wet month here in the mid-Atlantic region -- and today, in true form, it is almost 90 degrees.  So much for spring.  The lack of any kind of semi-normal seasonal transition time has made getting the garden cleaned and ready for summer quite a challenge.  There have been a number of days when I have weeded in a downpour and raced to pick up necessities at the garden store in between heavy showers. Hence, there has been little time to reflect and there has been no "this is spring, here is my garden metaphor of the year" post.  Today, however, is your lucky day (or not, depending…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

Love as strong as death…an Ash Wednesday meditation

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday.  And, many of us will find a church somewhere -- our own community or one unfamiliar to us  or a subway station or a street corner -- and take upon ourselves the mark of this day, the simple smear of burned palm leaves and oils that for centuries before has shown the wearer to be a Christian, someone entering the time of fasting and reflection that by our tradition is called Lent. And today, again, depending on where you mark the beginning of this journey, you may hear the words of the prophet Joel, who decries the darkness all around and calls the people to…
Read More

Present…

I am writing to you from an undisclosed location on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Okay, I'll confess -- I've just always wanted to say those words, "from an undisclosed location," because I have seen too many espionage movies and television shows. Truthfully, I am in the final hours of a twenty-four hour personal "retreat", an activity (or non-activity?) with which I have some discomfort.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of the contemplative life as portrayed in many of the wonderful books out there; most days I am so palpably aware of the presence of God in every fiber of my being that I can barely function according to…
Read More

Catching up on a little reading…

What good is a slightly rainy vacation if you can't catch up on a little reading?  And my backlog is substantial.  For example, when the new Diana Butler Bass work Grounded  magically appeared in my Kindle carousel the other day, I cringed as I remembered that I had not yet finished her last book, Christianity without Religion (2012).  I like to read an author's work sequentially whenever possible so that I can follow the thread of their thinking and theorizing.  That quirk in my personality meant that it was time to finish Christianity without Religion, so I picked it up again or I would never be able to begin reading Grounded, a book I have…
Read More

Pilgrim in place

No, I have not confused Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm referring to another kind of pilgrim. Today is the 12th Day of Christmas for those who observe such things.  I try, but somehow that observance becomes more difficult as the world begins its wind-up called "the new year."  People return to school and work, expectations start to rise, traffic patterns return to their pre-celebration insanity and winter settles in for the next few months of who-knows-what.  And here I sit in one of my favorite landscapes, looking out the window at the sunrise that will not stay long  because of a massive rain storm that is changing my plans for this…
Read More

Subversive Christmas…

I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It all began last year, when we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon for the Illuminations. You can read some of my thoughts about the true 12 days of Christmas (meaning the days following Dec. 25 and ending at Epiphany on January 6) in this article from the archives.  I haven't changed my thinking much since then, in fact, I am more than ever convinced that the truly subversive act of faith would be to observe these 12 days following our now mostly secular extravaganza known as the Christmas season (since, except for little subversive pockets of people, has…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Unexpected roses…

We've had a wet month here in the mid-Atlantic region -- and today, in true form, it is almost 90 degrees.  So much for spring.  The lack of any kind of semi-normal seasonal transition time has made getting the garden cleaned and ready for summer quite a challenge.  There have been a number of days when I have weeded in a downpour and raced to pick up necessities at the garden store in between heavy showers. Hence, there has been little time to reflect and there has been no "this is spring, here is my garden metaphor of the year" post.  Today, however, is your lucky day (or not, depending…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

Love as strong as death…an Ash Wednesday meditation

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday.  And, many of us will find a church somewhere -- our own community or one unfamiliar to us  or a subway station or a street corner -- and take upon ourselves the mark of this day, the simple smear of burned palm leaves and oils that for centuries before has shown the wearer to be a Christian, someone entering the time of fasting and reflection that by our tradition is called Lent. And today, again, depending on where you mark the beginning of this journey, you may hear the words of the prophet Joel, who decries the darkness all around and calls the people to…
Read More

Present…

I am writing to you from an undisclosed location on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Okay, I'll confess -- I've just always wanted to say those words, "from an undisclosed location," because I have seen too many espionage movies and television shows. Truthfully, I am in the final hours of a twenty-four hour personal "retreat", an activity (or non-activity?) with which I have some discomfort.  I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of the contemplative life as portrayed in many of the wonderful books out there; most days I am so palpably aware of the presence of God in every fiber of my being that I can barely function according to…
Read More

Catching up on a little reading…

What good is a slightly rainy vacation if you can't catch up on a little reading?  And my backlog is substantial.  For example, when the new Diana Butler Bass work Grounded  magically appeared in my Kindle carousel the other day, I cringed as I remembered that I had not yet finished her last book, Christianity without Religion (2012).  I like to read an author's work sequentially whenever possible so that I can follow the thread of their thinking and theorizing.  That quirk in my personality meant that it was time to finish Christianity without Religion, so I picked it up again or I would never be able to begin reading Grounded, a book I have…
Read More

Pilgrim in place

No, I have not confused Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I'm referring to another kind of pilgrim. Today is the 12th Day of Christmas for those who observe such things.  I try, but somehow that observance becomes more difficult as the world begins its wind-up called "the new year."  People return to school and work, expectations start to rise, traffic patterns return to their pre-celebration insanity and winter settles in for the next few months of who-knows-what.  And here I sit in one of my favorite landscapes, looking out the window at the sunrise that will not stay long  because of a massive rain storm that is changing my plans for this…
Read More

Subversive Christmas…

I'm a little obsessed with the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It all began last year, when we visited George Washington's Mount Vernon for the Illuminations. You can read some of my thoughts about the true 12 days of Christmas (meaning the days following Dec. 25 and ending at Epiphany on January 6) in this article from the archives.  I haven't changed my thinking much since then, in fact, I am more than ever convinced that the truly subversive act of faith would be to observe these 12 days following our now mostly secular extravaganza known as the Christmas season (since, except for little subversive pockets of people, has…
Read More