The Gospel reading for the Fourth Sunday of Eastertime is John’s story of the Good Shepherd. It isn’t often I find myself thankfully praising God for sheep as I swarm down Manhattan sidewalks with the rest of the hive. Rarer still, for one who prides herself on a certain capacity for insightful logical thinking, the…

The week was not an easy one for me. In an email to a friend, I said that “my head is spinning a bit and my heart is aching some, to tell you the truth.” Nothing radical happened. Nothing devastating. Rather, it was multiple things on multiple fronts- things that raise questions upon questions, things…

I walked into work this morning, coffee in hand and thoughts in mind, and was asked “Hey! How was your weekend?” “It was a good one, actually. Especially yesterday. Thanks– You?” “What exciting thing made it so wonderful?” And there I had to stop and think. Not about whether the day was wonderful or not,…

When your day begins in the pouring rain and the driver of the cab you damply hailed is chugging Red Bull… when a class of your students yesterday spent their time writing poems about decorum in the library (I figured, why not combine? It’s national poetry month and their behavior was markedly lacking in that…

It is a pleasure to have words before me as a potter has clay. I passed a glorious hour and a half this afternoon lost in my attempt to shape the vocabulary that had poured onto the page. Matching syllables, sounds, ideas, testing out the rub of words together… And then I thought about a…

After Reading Poetry in the Springtime My office, the satchelboldly slungacross passionate, thought-filled,writerly me. My desk, the tableon an uneven floor,tucked into the corner,though facing the world! My muse, the Spirit,swim-dancing in womenand men and the wholeof what fills my senses. My joy, to sing outwith pen in hand, Amen!Bring on love and lifein abundance,…

Alleluia! Lifting arms bedeckedwith prismatic sequins,droplets of joy froma rain of tears,I bow and breathe deeplyin the fresh garden glory of diaphanous petalsopen to taste new Spring, I dance with creationto the music of birth! ©MperiodPress

On Friday of this past week I had a chance to preside at a Lenten Reconciliation service at my parish. It was a most intriguing experience, actually. People asked afterward– how was it?? How did it go?? I can say this– People approached me afterward and spoke of how moving and meaningful they found it;…

Friend heard NPR piece: six word memoirs.Same friend challenged.Result:Writer, ruminator, passionate knower, encountering God. Now, you?

I was at a meeting this weekend when the term “primordial word” came up while speaking about the heart. “Heart” is one of those images, those words, those concepts, those symbols, that, for lack of a more technical term, twangs us inside. This idea, that there are those innate concepts/images that evoke such a manifested…