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Beginner's Heart

When it’s noisy, I can’t think. My mother used to say — I can’t hear myself think!! Now, these many years later, I get it. When the dogs are barking (frequent!), and the phone is ringing, and someone (or 2 someones) is talking? I’m hopeless. That’s when I want to be sitting on the deck.…

“Instead of asking ourselves, “How can I find security and happiness?” we could ask ourselves, “Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace—disappointment in all its many forms—and…

If I were a Christian, I would be a member of a small church. A very small church indeed, in Tabgha, a small village on the Sea of Galilee. The Church of the Multiplication, where the miracle of the loaves & fishes occurred. Five loaves & two fishes, made many — a familiar parable to…

Ben Franklin is on record as having said, “When you are finished changing, you’re finished.” I LOVE that. And I heartily agree, although I confess: there are all kinds of change I resist fiercely. I don’t like ANY  kind of changes to my schedule — if it interferes w/’my’ time, it’s a pain. I’m only half-kidding:…

Although I love rain (honest), I don’t think about it a lot. Truth is, I take rain for granted. The drought in California is real for me, but it doesn’t come to mind when it rains. At least not usually. But this week, my sister-in-law is in from California, and as the Oklahoma rains sluiced…

Young poets often believe that it takes unhappiness to create ‘art.’ You must drink too much, do drugs, have a sadly aching life. Be as miserable & crazy as Poe, as suicidal as Hemingway, as dysfunctional as Sexton. Sometimes, they even hear this from their seniors. It’s NOT true. Happiness fosters not only art, but…

In my family, there are certain things you don’t eat w/out cornbread. It’s just not done. These would include: any kind of beans (but especially bean soup), almost any kind of soup (but especially chicken noodle or potato-based chowders), and chili. There are more (anything Grandma or Aunt Bonnie served w/ cornbread, for instance). Suffice…

I confess to a love of horoscopes. At heart, I’m still the animist kid I’ve always been: all things have spirits, and all things will tell you stories. If you can understand them, they will tell you of your future. So of course I love horoscopes — even though I know the science is pretty…

What colour is a bad mood? Not blue — I’m not sad. Not red — I’m not angry, really. Not purple — I’m not depressed. I googled ‘bad mood,’ for images (free to use!) of ‘bad mood.’ And this is what I found. It’s perfect. Grumpy, gritty, sand. Yep. That’s my day. Sand in your…

Sometimes we forget we’ve changed. Sometimes all we see is the old photo, out of date, blurred by time. But still razor-sharp in our mind’s eye. Once, the story goes, there was a caterpillar. Who was bright green, ate stinky milkweed, and basically was rather homely. In a pretty green fashion. Then there was a…
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