Lenten Thoughts

Lenten Thoughts

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Two nights ago after a leisurely dinner, I found myself reading a fine essay about Lent. I rounded off the dinner with a few squares of white chocolate as I pondered Michael Gerson’s words.

The chocolate is significant because I didn’t give it up this year, and in Gerson’s thoughts I found some justification for my decision. “Some of us give up sweets,” he writes, “with the dual purpose of self-sacrifice and dieting. It is fully consistent with American ideals to kill two birds with one ancient spiritual practice — examining our inner selves while losing those 10 pesky pounds.” The focus instead ought to be on the inner life, he says.

What I was striving for this Lent was to pray more, snipe less — to be more grateful for that which has been given to me. In that I’ve been only partially successful. But I’m encouraged when I learn of others who struggle too.

Gerson describes an earlier “enforced Lent” he experienced recently, a week in the hospital with poor food and no electronics. “What did I miss? Lots of things. What could I do without? Pretty much everything.”

Such denial, he writes, reveals that the “richness of life is found elsewhere — in … the experience of gratitude — not for this thing or that thing — but for God’s radiating presence in all things.”

I don’t typically seek spiritual uplift from the newspaper. But that’s what I found the other day.

Meandering More

Meandering More

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Lately I’ve been living the life of a dog-walker. Not a professional dog-walker, mind you, the kind that gets paid, but an amateur — a true amateur, according to the French root of that word, one who loves, who does what she does for love.

And love this little guy I do. We all do.

A couple weeks ago he started limping. Did he hurt his paw? Would it resolve itself? The vet rendered a verdict: Copper had torn his ACL! Who knew canines had anterior cruciate ligaments?

While some dogs have surgery for this, I doubt this dog will. Instead, we’re keeping him quiet and giving him medicine for pain and healing.

Keeping Copper still is not an easy feat. It means barring him from running across the backyard, something he wouldn’t have attempted two weeks ago but now, as he improves, he would love nothing better than to do. I’ve barricaded the deck stairs (his only way out of the house without a leash) and he’s walked a few houses up and down the street when he needs to do his business.

It’s been an interesting interlude, this routine dog walking, quite a departure from the typical Copper experience, which involves holding on for dear life. Instead, the two of us have been meandering more, Copper sniffing, me musing — both of us slowing down and taking life a little easier.

Interior Decorating

Interior Decorating

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I don’t take naturally to interior decorating. I have no flair for it, no natural aptitude. I know what I like, which for lack of a better term I’ll call Old World Cozy, but this is not an easy vision to articulate.

A recent burst of decorating energy has propelled me online and into furniture stores, where I wander bewildered among the couches, tables and chairs. The problem with making one decision is the many others that follow. 
If we buy this couch, must we buy the chair? And the ottoman? And what about end tables and lamps?  Ah, yes, the list is endless. 
Which is why … sometimes … I do nothing at all.


(Photo shot in a furniture store showroom which shall remain nameless.)
Brave Buds

Brave Buds

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Before the leaf and flower, trees take on a vague pink sheen. On closer inspection the sheen turns out to be clusters of budding branches. But from afar, when caught in a spurt of sunshine on a breezy day, they seem to gleam with a light pink halo.

It’s the maples, the brave ones, showing us the way. It’s not that hard, they say. It’s a matter of faith, of reaching to your highest branches, letting the life-force flow.

On a walk this weekend I snapped photos of trees and shrubs in various states of bloom. I thought about anticipation, potential, that which is worth waiting for. Surely there are spring shots lovelier than these.

But to me these speak to the heart of the season, that from the gray trunks of winter come a riot of bloom. That summer greens would never happen without these brave buds.

2,700

2,700

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Sometimes I only see the milestones after they happen. Yesterday’s was this: I’ve written 2,700 posts since I started this blog in February 2010.

It makes sense, I guess, numerically speaking. I’m in my tenth year, and I write almost 300 posts a year.

Still, the round numbers always make me reflect on how much this blog has become part of my life, an (almost) daily habit.

What this boils down to is that I make sense of the world by writing about it. I’m a born scribbler, that’s all.

Naming Names

Naming Names

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One of the more light-hearted aspects of my work is the opportunity I occasionally have to make up names for people. The reason I do this is anything but lighthearted, though. It’s because I interview and write about people who have been trafficked and can’t reveal their true identities.

Still, this gives me a creative license typically lacking in most of my daily to-dos. This morning I’ve been reading about Cambodian names, about how family names appear first and given names second (which I knew) and how name meanings are especially prized.

So I’ve been having some fun with it. Should the lovely young woman who met her husband at a survivor’s forum be called Bopha (flowers) or Arunny (morning sun)? Should her young husband be called Narith (masculine) or Leap (luck)?

The mother’s name was easy. The smiling woman who greeted us as we pulled into the brickyard, who wiped her hand on her skirt and reached out to shake ours, she will be called Sophea (wise).

(School children in Cambodia, who shall remain nameless.)

Our Towns

Our Towns

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I’ve just finished reading Our Towns: A 100,000 Mile Journey into the Heart of America by James Fallows and Deborah Fallows. The authors, who write for the Atlantic and charted their multi-year progress on that publication’s Our Towns notebook, have a few things to say about what makes places prosperous and what makes them whole.

Their observations were based on their visits (often multiple visits, some years apart) to towns and cities all across America, from Eastport, Maine, to Redlands, California; from Holland, Michigan, to Greenville, South Carolina.

Here’s some of what they learned about what makes towns tick: Thriving places consider themselves separate entities, not suburban satellites, and people work together on practical local possibilities rather than letting national politics keep them apart. Many of these towns have flourished because of public-private partnerships, research universities and community colleges. Elementary and secondary education also makes a difference. Downtowns are one of the most important features. They enliven towns, they give them heart.

The part of the book that spoke to me most involved the intersection of people and place. When asked why they live where they do, citizens of these towns say it’s about belonging. “This is my place,” they exclaim. To which the Fallows add: “From Sioux Falls to Eastport to Columbus to San Bernardino. Hometown [is] home.”


(The photo is from my hometown, Lexington, Kentucky, which was not featured in the book but which holds a special place in my heart.)

Five Years

Five Years

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A few weeks before Dad died, his friend Jerry bought him a new watch battery. Five years later, the watch is still ticking.

Apart from wondering where Jerry purchased the battery, I have often reflected on Dad’s watch and its longevity, how it has kept going so long after his passing. It’s a vivid reminder of his enthusiasm for life. Even when Dad was dying, he wanted to know what time it was.

A watch is an intimate thing. It’s worn on the pulse, a shortcut to the heart. It becomes a part of its owner in a way few other items do. I’ve come to count on Dad’s watch being close to mine every evening, as if through our timepieces Dad and I are somehow still communicating.

The battery won’t last forever, I know, nor will the watch. But sometimes I like to pretend that they will.

Saint Joseph’s Day

Saint Joseph’s Day

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When I was just out of college and teaching high school English for a few years, I was lucky enough to work with a man named George Herman. He seemed old to me at the time, though was probably just in his 50s. Puckish and fastidious, Herman led the 20-plus-person New Trier English department, New Trier being a suburban Chicago high school with a campus as big as some colleges.

Herman comes to mind regularly this time of year because when I wore green on St. Patty’s Day, he told me he was holding out for March 19, when he would wear red for St. Joseph’s Day. And he did. I can still remember his red vest.

Today is St. Joseph’s Day, and I’ve been thinking about this saint, what was asked of him. Yes, your betrothed is with child, said the angel, but don’t be afraid. The child was conceived through the Holy Spirit. You will name him Jesus and he will save his people, your people, from their sins.

Who knows how this all came down. Who knows if it really did come down. (My faith is a rather elastic one.) But even in metaphor, St. Joseph’s example speaks volumes. To follow your beliefs no matter where they lead you, to endure ridicule and scandal for them. Not a bad example to follow — depending on your beliefs, of course.

(A photograph that has nothing to do with St. Jospeh. I just happened to take it while walking to work this morning.)  

St. Patty’s Redux

St. Patty’s Redux

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One advantage of having a tame St. Patty’s Day celebration is waking up and wanting to do the day all over again. It’s something that younger people (and my younger self) would have problems with.

But because my office is having a little happy hour this afternoon, and because I never get my fill of Irish music, I’m treating today as St. Patty’s #2.

I’m wearing green and humming tunes and yes, I’ll try to do a little work today, too.  But the spirit will be with me. The Irish spirit, that is.