Sharing an Apple
Poet Jane Hirshfield is new to me. Robert Bly is the one who introduced us, in his book, Looking for Dragon Smoke, and although I knew Bly’s name, I had paid it no attention (perhaps because none of my college…
I Would Make that Trade
I got to see my six-month-old grandson today. I love him so much and we had a great time talking, munching on toys, trying a new food (him, not me), laughing, and hugging. He showed up here with his parents,…
Late Nights and Bad Memories
It’s a gorgeous, sunny day with blue skies, white snow, and green trees out my window. The driveway could use some shoveling, so I’m sure I’ll be out in the fresh air before the dark descends around 5:00, which feels…
Just a Pebble in a Pond
St. Thérèse taught the value of the “Little Way”—a path to holiness that lay in performing all our daily tasks and duties in a spirit of love and in the presence of God. Dorothy embraced this teaching. She believed that…
Where Does One Begin?
Now, it is no longer a child who is going to tell this story and that is regrettable. It is a man. Worse yet, it is the university professor I have become. I will have to guard myself very carefully…
Daring Despite the Danger
“The known, our current story, protects us from the unknown, from chaos—which is to say, provides our experience with determinate and predictable structure. … When we are in the domain of the known, so to speak, there is no reason…
New Narratives
It has arrived: the first day of 2022. Why have I looked forward to it with such longing? Is it simply the notion of starting fresh, cleaning out the old and tired and worn? Is it that 2021 was a…
The Humiliated Christ in Russia
Caryll Houselander was an interesting cat: quirky and Catholic, a bit of a mystic, a bit of a crazy cat lady without the cats. She was born in England in 1901 and died of breast cancer at the age of…
Thinking and Knowing
Art and poetry get banished from our lives, and we are impoverished. We put our hands in our empty pockets and wonder why nothing fills them. We turn to roadmaps and instruction manuals but are still unable to decipher how…
Gift Giving
Recent days have been especially conversation heavy. After all, there is a lot going on in the world, and nothing is as it seems. I depend on others—in books, online—to help me see what is beneath the surface, and I…
Breadcrumbs at My Feet
I have come to value irony and nuance, and I have found so much of both lately (because I’m looking for them?) that I can’t quite help being happy, calm, and at peace. Clues are all around us, people reveal…
The Words I Choose
Freedom, love, duty, faith: these words have taken up residence in my mind, and they don’t seem likely to hightail it out of town any time soon. Safety, on the other hand, is a word absolutely not welcome in my…
