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We have had the kind of weekend that makes me glad I live in New England: cool mornings, highs in the seventies, low humidity, and the long, warm, late-afternoon light that lets you know the days won’t be this way for long. Our little town put on a Performing
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tiny waltz and somehow a day worth bottling has slipped into night without leaving words to describe how it felt and I have spent far too long staring at a screen as though the sheer silence of sitting would shape my sentences and I have deleted far more than I
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how are you? is the throwaway question in need of redemption when asked it should be followed by a pregnant pause the questioner willing to be the midwife we have let ourselves settle for hit and run compassion for lots of reasons we mean well we want to know --I’
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When I had my first knee replacement, a church member called about a week after the surgery and said, “I can help you,” and so we asked her to come to the house. To say she is a physical therapist feels her short; she is a healer. Her visits were
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harvest moon I posted a picture of the moonrise over Long Island Sound and a friend in Arkansas wrote, “It was really bright at our house too!” Another friend in Carolina told me she is talking to a group in Australia who feed hungry people about ways she can help
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Part of my Sunday morning ritual is to pour a cup of coffee and watch CBS Sunday Morning until it’s time to go to church. I’ve watched the show on and off since the days of Charles Kuralt. It is just the right mix of calm and questions.
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As I journaled this morning, the word mercy worked its way to the top. And it struck me that mercy and merci might have something in common, which they do etymologically. Gratitude and kindness share the same roots. As I wrote, I thought of Mary Gauthier’s song “Mercy Now,
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A few nights ago, I quoted Gareth Higgins: “When we tell a diminished story, we make a diminished life.” I went on to talk about what the word diminished meant. My friend Jeff offered this comment in response: Another use of the word: “Diminished” chords beg to be resolved because
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This morning I started a new book, or I should say restarted; it is another that has laid fallow for some time. The book is After the Locusts: Letters from a Landscape of Faith by Denise M. Ackermann, a South African feminist liberation theologian. The book was a gift from
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As friends of mine are keeping the fast of Yom Kippur, I learned about a Jewish holiday I knew only by name: the Festival of Booths, or Sukkot (which is the Hebrew word that means booths). The week-long observance happens in the fall. This year, it begins next Monday, September
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I am happy to report I finished a book today. After I wrote my Morning Pages, I turned to the past page of How Not to Be Afraid and read the last chapter and epilogue, as well as the blessings Gareth Higgins uses to close the book, in good Irish
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I went to the grocery store on my lunch hour because we were out of milk, which meant my mother-in-law couldn’t drink her coffee. I circled through The Fresh Market and picked up some chicken and ground turkey, a can of great northern beans, and some green beans, paid