I unwrapped seven gifts before dinner tonight. I took my time with each layer, trying to imagine the care of the one who chose the wrapping and crafted the contents. Tonight i wanted to honor the process of receiving these gifts and preparing to share them by taking my time and by allowing each sense…

I got back around 1:00 AM this morning and went to sleep sometime around 3:30. It wasn’t jet lag, it wasn’t excitement…it was “difference.” Funny how what we call home can change with such ease. In short time this will become home again, I know. But I think for a while I will still listen…

I always believed in the power of language…but now, after this experience of a month in Mexico, it is far less about the power-potential of language than it is about the sacredness, the preciousness, the tenderness, the life-capacity of language… I understand in a different way the Genesis story. It is no trouble at all…

Around 8:00 this morning, on the roof with coffee and thoughts. I am realizing only now that the direction I face each morning–toward the cerros (hills)–is in fact toward the East. How instinctive and appropriate. The sun is usually not yet up when I am here. Anotrher thing I notice this morning is that even…

I just returned from the Zoo…not something I enjoy so much because the animals all look so very sad to me…but it was a group field trip for about 150 kids. I feel sooo grimy and dusty in almost every place imaginable… The kids had a good time, though. Nearly everything we saw was paired…

Good morning…I just returned from being on the roof of the house with morning coffee and looking up to the hills that surround the colonia where I have been staying. I couldn´t help but think about a song we sing at the parish I attend in NYC…I lift my eyes to the hills…Jerusalem, my destiny…though…

Some of you have heard bits of this, but I wanted to put it all together… Yesterday brought an adventure of a new sort… we went to mass at the Zoo! Yes, Mass… Zoo… add in Rain… and some INTENSE mud…and a walk of about 3/4 mile in said mud to get to the entrance…

I am headed to Mexico in two days and will return in a month’s time. People have asked whether I am taking a camera…I thought about it for a while before deciding not to. Several years ago when I helped take a group of students to England, all of my photos were ruined at the…

I went on a picnic yesterday…complete with friend, egg salad, onion rolls, plums, drinks, and a bench along the Hudson. We spoke of many things, as we always do. Those things gradually began to include the lightning off in the distance, the curtains of rain visible in the clouds beyond us, and the increasing choppiness…

I don’t know who JD is—an in tune little girl, a thoughtful young boy—but the freshly pressed and tidy child sitting next to me on the bus a couple of mornings ago was telling me about attending a birthday celebration for her/him. The story began with my companion bus rider practicing her nouns. Dog! Window!…