Browsed by
Category: events

Lesson in Resilience

Lesson in Resilience

Comments 0 Comment

Martin Luther King “ran out of certainty but never faith.” This from an op-ed in today’s Washington Post. In it, Stephen Kendrick and Paul Kendrick remind us that King had become unpopular by 1968. There was a great weariness in him. But there was also resilience. It’s the resilience we need to remember now.

One of the great surprises to me in all the MLK coverage this month is to realize how young he was: only 39 years old when he was assassinated 50 years ago today. Perhaps it was the weight of the weariness that made him look older than his years.

Here’s Kendrick and Kendrick again: “Fifty years later, it would look too familiar to the King of 1968 to see our continued economic inequality, hawkishness, backlash to civil rights gains, and racist violence from Charleston to Charlottesville. His response then was to resist exhaustion from the deluge of issues and to enlarge his work instead, hold firm his insistence.”

King’s insistence, his persistence, his grace under pressure, is a lesson to us all.

Easter Monday

Easter Monday

Comments 0 Comment

Easter has its own rhythm, different from Christmas or Thanksgiving. Church comes first.

Yesterday, through some miracle of timing, Suzanne arrived only minutes after we did, which meant she could park her ambrosia salad, backpack, running tights and jogging shoes in the car and slide into the seat we saved in the big sanctuary.

The sermon was more honest than others I recall. It was as if the priest was trying to convince himself of the significance of the empty tomb. His conclusion: there must be something to it, because of all the good people we know who are gone, and because of the incompleteness of life.

A cynic — heck, even a realist — could easily counter these arguments. Of course, there are good people in the world, but that doesn’t mean there’s a God and an afterlife. As for incompleteness, that’s why we have irony.

But I was touched at the honest homily. The priest is one I’ve seen for years, and he looked noticeably older this year, walked with a cane. Maybe he’s working out some things in his own mind. Whatever the case, I appreciated his candor.

In the end, he said, it all comes down to faith.

And so it does.


(Detail from the Cambodian monastery at Lumbini, birthplace of the Buddha)

A Woman, Writing

A Woman, Writing

Comments 0 Comment

This morning I passed a woman in the lobby. She was sitting in a chair, writing in her journal.

Not tapping on her phone, not scrolling down the tiny screen. But engaged with the paper and the pen.

I noticed this not only because I believe in it and practice it, but because it is so rare.

When you address the page, the page does not talk back to you. It absorbs your words, the wise and the silly. It gives you space, a blank expanse without spell-check or word complete. For that reason, it is serene, even empowering.

Today is International Woman’s Day. I just wrote and posted a story to celebrate it. But when I think of Woman’s Day 2018, what I’ll keep in mind is not a year of marches and #metoo. It’s the quiet communion of writer and page. It’s the image of a woman writing.

(Pensive, a painting by Edmund Blair Leighton)

Many Questions, No Answers

Many Questions, No Answers

Comments 0 Comment

It’s a Monday that doesn’t feel like a Monday, and I’ve been reading about the Parkland shooting, listening to the young voices, learning about the cracks that Nicholas Cruz slipped through.

That we starve social services of the funds they need to help the mentally ill is a given. That our nation is awash in guns is another given. And then there are the deeper causes, the values we no longer hold dear, the center that no longer holds.

How to bind these wounds? How to mend these broken hearts? Especially when solutions are labeled liberal or conservative, and when those labels prevent us from talking honestly about what has happened and what can be done.

How to come together for the common good?

I fear we’ve forgotten how.

Year of the Dog

Year of the Dog

Comments 0 Comment

It’s Chinese New Year and the Year of the Dog, the eleventh of the zodiac. I read that the Dog is associated with the earthly branch and the hours 7 to 9 in the evening. When it comes to yin and yang, Dogs are “yang.”

This doesn’t mean a lot to me. When I think of the Year of the Dog, I think of our dog, Copper, and I think of every year.

Copper is treated like a little king in this house. He lounges on beds, has grated cheese sprinkled over his kibble, and is walked frequently. His barks and whines are tolerated well, as are his middle-of-the-night requests for basement access (this only when it’s raining).

When it comes to Copper, much is given … but much is received. Copper is loving and snuggly. His big soulful eyes seem to know all. And when he jumps on the couch (like so many of his antics once forbidden and now tolerated), he pushes his back up against my leg. I’m his security blanket. But often, he is mine.

Changing Places

Changing Places

Comments 0 Comment

For some reason the management company that owns my office building has set out furniture and plants, set up a coffee bar, a wine bar, hung fabric sculptures on the wall and set potted plants in the corners. When I left last night, a singer was crooning in the lobby.

We’re not sure what’s behind this sudden show of largesse, though some of us suspect rental fees will be rising soon. Is it to build community? To advertise art (some of those fabric sculptures are for sale)? To humanize?

I had the idea for this post before I heard the news from Florida. Seventeen dead in another school shooting. Can we trade this world for another? Because I’m not sure I want to live in this one anymore. Can I put chairs in my lobby and art on my walls? Can I pretend I live somewhere that I do not?

Golden Hearts

Golden Hearts

Comments 0 Comment

Last night I watched pairs skating and thought about love, the glancing touch, moving together, moving alone.  Head-spinning and heart-stopping. Can there be a more perfect evocation of romantic love than these dancers on ice?

Cut to a commercial, followed by another scene, another Olympic venue. The once-vanquished hero returns to scenes of former glory. He had spent some dark days, was challenged by young competitors, worked hard and risked much.

Can he do it again? He bounces on his board and takes off on his last run. And he is flying, cork-screwing, skittering in the air, defying death (it seems to me) with every swoop and curve. And yes, he has what it takes, he wins the gold.

Afterward, he smiles, pumps his fists, makes his way into the crowd where he finds … his mother. And he falls into her arms, sobbing.

Another kind of love.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Birthday Surprises

Birthday Surprises

Comments 0 Comment

An email this morning told me a package had been delivered.  I got a kick out of this — the fact that I had come in through the garage last night and overlooked this large item on the front stoop, being informed of it through a bunch of 1s and 0s on my computer. It was a funny way to begin this last day of November, the birthday of two people I love — my daughter and my brother.

But that was just the first surprise.  The second happened when I was lugging in the first — and Copper trotted around the front of the house (where he is never, ever allowed to be because he will run away) and right through the front door. The backyard gate must have been left open.
Whatever the case, it was all meant to be — the package left out overnight so that I could be there when Copper escaped, could usher him back where he belongs. The rescue of a dog that means so much to the birthday girl.
Yes, it’s often a random world — but sometimes it’s not. Today is one of those times.
Groaning Board

Groaning Board

Comments 0 Comment

Little chance of this groaning board giving way, but it is quite full as I lay out the ingredients for my contribution to the Thanksgiving feast. Pumpkin, spices, brown sugar and condensed milk for the pie. Onions, celery, bread crumbs, wild rice, pecans and butter for the stuffing. And — new this year — red cabbage, dates, cilantro and more pecans for “autumn coleslaw.”

As I type the list, I take mental inventory. Do we have enough butter? Enough broth? I foresee another trip to the grocery store.

All to make this groaning board … groan a little more.

In Praise of Service

In Praise of Service

Comments 0 Comment

When Dad posed for this shot he was younger than my youngest child, a 21-year-old man with a skip in his step and (though you can’t tell it from this picture) his heart in his throat. It was terrifying to be a tail-gunner in a B-17 bomber, to fly across Germany with the enemy shooting at you, to return to the base in Horham, England to see the empty bunks of those who didn’t make it back from their own bombing missions.

So of course I’m thinking about Dad on this Veterans’ Day. But I’m also thinking about Drew, my brother, a civilian in harm’s way, using his skill and knowledge to protect our country.

How important it is on Veteran’s Day to thank those who are not yet veterans, who are still in active service, or even those not in the military at all, but who nevertheless risk their lives to keep us safe and free.