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Beginner's Heart

Sometimes, when I wake up in the small hours of the night (as I often do), I lay there thinking. Last night, I was thinking in part about how lucky I am in my two sons. How proud of them I am, what nice men they are. How they phone home, what successes they are…

Technology — and loving sons — is a winning combination. My younger son emailed today, asking for book suggestions. The email said he was getting ready to go to India. Now, I knew this. But you didn’t call first? And you know what? He meant next week, Mom, so chill. Which I did. Eventually. AFTER…

Fire destroys. Especially in parks. And yet, it can have consequences beyond the immediate destruction, even the resultants deaths. This is a picture of the inferno that blazed on the Rim vista point, in the Stanislaus National Forest. It cost approximately $127 million to fight. The fire that devastated Yellowstone still haunts visitors — there…

Genuine, heartfelt ritual helps us reconnect with power and vision as well as with the sadness and pain of the human condition. When the power and vision come together, there’s some sense of doing things properly for their own sake. Making a proper cup of tea means that you thoroughly and completely make that tea…

I’m not (I think…?) a needy person, someone who seeks love and affirmation for everything s/he does. What I do like is when I can just love folks. My folks, of course — not as good w/ the whole hoi polloi. My friends, family, the people I journey with. Love is a pretty good mirror,…

Once upon a time (and it was a very long time ago) there were a very young man and a very young woman. They fell in love & eventually (much to their parents’ delight) married. They didn’t know any ministers — neither being church-goers — so they asked their religion professor to marry them. ‘Happy…

Sometimes I wish life was less … nuanced. Complicated, in other words. I wish I didn’t feel I have to vote w/ my $$ when companies aren’t ethical. Since $$ are all many US corporations seem to value, I’ve started publicising their choices, and asking others to join me in refusing to support bad choices…

Poor Monday. Even after retirement, it remains the ugly dog you’d like to love, but somehow can’t. Too many memories of weekends spent catching up, and Monday showing up waaay too early. Today’s a lovely day — cool morning, crisp. The hairy woodpecker busy demolishing the seed cylinder, a murder of crows on the roofline…

Today I was thinking — again — about the similarities between contemporary conservative Christianity (at least in everyday life) and historical Puritanism. Several of us were discussing the sad state of Oklahoma’s schools. One mentioned that she has 30 (yes, THIRTY) kids in her kindergarten class. I added that a friend of mine has 220+…

Rarely do I feel inadequate, like I don’t measure up. If that sounds overly confident, I don’t mean to. It’s just that I don’t normally spend a lot of time comparing myself to others. From a very early age I knew my life wasn’t like most American kids, so while I may have wished I…
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