I have just returned from spending two days in the apartment of a friend who is on retreat. Her apartment is on the 27th floor of the building and has one large window facing more or less west and one on large window facing more or less east. The bed where I slept was along…

I am a big fan of dip pens and ink. I love the process of cleaning the nib, finding the best color ink for the words to be penned, and baptizing the tip with chromatic potential. It is the next best thing to being able to head to a scriptorium myself and illumine the Word….

“I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul remembering my good friends.”Shakespeare, Richard II I was talking to a friend this afternoon, a former colleague whom I have known now for ten years. He has been through some significant change in the last little while and I wanted to check in…

I just finished an exceedingly satisfying meal and am sitting here at the computer listening to Eva Cassidy, drinking a mug of decaf, and feeling mellow, full, and thoughtful. Baked chicken, so tender, coated in breadcrumbs laced with hints of pepper, salt, a kiss of Tony Cachere’s, a little parsely. Zucchini sauteed in olive oil…

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…