Down and Within

After the Wednesday evening contemplative service at Saint Andrew’s this week… Instead of going up to the balcony, today I went down.  I started on the chair but it didn’t feel right.  Too…what? Perch-y.  To ‘on’ and not ‘within’ the space of the sanctuary.  It was like I needed to touch down.  To ground myself…

From Above and From the Journal

From the journal… Went up to the balcony as I had wanted to… The time of day was perfect, and the day itself—still full of light even at the sighing time when sun prepares to exchange the vigil with moon. First thing I noticed was the temperature shift when walking through the doors—so sudden. Where…

Wednesday Peace

Ms. Tippett: In 2006, I sat across from [Elie Wiesel] in a hotel room that my producers had turned into a makeshift studio and I asked him to tell me what happened after he lost his faith forever, as he wrote, at Auschwitz. He answered: “What happened afterwards is in the book. I went on praying.” Ms….

Orion, Cassiopeia, Polaris

I went to the midweek contemplative service at Saint Andrew’s United Church of Canada last night. One of the many reasons I love going to this is the quiet opening I can feel inside of me…the combination of a grounding and a freeing that has me pick up a pen and paper with a certain…

Right book, right moment

As a librarian—and now as an occasional bookseller, I have said to the people who approached me with frustration at not liking the book they recently read— Before you dismiss it entirely, consider that it might not be about the book…it might be about the moment. Keep your mind, eyes, instinct, open for the book…

The Assignment

The assignment was to fall in love. The details were up to you. -Louise Glück- This was a recent contribution to the near daily morning message exchange with a friend. Our on-line conversation began during the Pandemic and we have kept it up…sometimes a photo, sometimes a song, often a snippet of a work or…

A Tendency toward Awe

A tendency toward awe. It is something I have known since childhood—and something I shared aloud before I had full grasp of both recording it on a page and how to moderate my offerings. My father regularly enjoyed recalling a family trip from Ohio to North Carolina where, apparently, I chattered nearly non-stop about everything…

Three-Fold Blessing

I was surprised by beauty today…such a generous gift, that is… I was in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, for Spiritual Direction and I saw anew a nest I’d noticed first in late January (pic). It’s about half again as big as it seems in the photo and an architectural wonder in and of itself. Today, though…just…

Zanahoria means Carrot

One might reasonably wonder about the origin story here… I was making dinner last night and helping someone with English at the same time. She asked what we were having… I replied “Something different! We’re having ‘picnic.’ ” Brats, cole slaw, potato chips, and as a nod to the falling snow, roasted carrots instead of…

Poetry in Stride

When I was a kid, I used to sometimes make lunch for myself according to what I thought went with the book I was reading at the time. I suppose it was a way to steep even more in a world I was enjoying. If I’m honest, I still do that sometimes. That aspect of…