A Welcome Message
Being a pastor’s wife doesn’t mean I climb mountains more than the average person, although hiking is a favorite activity in our family. The picture of our two sons was taken in the Colorado Rockies, where the five of us spent a memorable week in the summer after our first son graduated from high school. Getting to a high place and enjoying a visual panorama is always a thrilling experience. My title here, though, refers more to the kind of … Read More
Caring About Career, In Moderation
You know that feeling of sailing along, thinking you know where you stand on a particular subject, and then the direction of the wind changes and you have to scurry around the boat to make adjustments? (Won’t go into those, as this is not my area of expertise, even though I grew up near water. Have a vague memory, however, of needing to get out of the way, fast, of a swinging-around mast). Something like this happened to me recently, … Read More
Unveiling a Statue, and a New School Year
Is it possible to bring any kind of lasting goodness from events that caused overwhelming loss? It was FDR who, on December 8th 1941, referred to the preceding day — when Pearl Harbor was attacked, bringing the United States into World War II — as one that will “live in infamy.” September 11th, 2001, became another. No matter the glorious weather, we still feel a shudder each time this somber anniversary arrives, mourning the devastating loss of life and the … Read More
Why I Started All This
When you get what you asked for, it’s normal to feel happy/excited/relieved…as well as uneasy/anxious/unworthy. At least this is what I’m telling myself these days as I begin to work with the publishing company that has graciously agreed to get my manuscript, becoming a real book, out. Our target date is Spring of ’25, so I have plenty of time to fret and to take deep breaths. Well, maybe not all that much time. The fact is, it’s remarkably easy … Read More
Come On Out to Hideaway
When you get swept up by phenomena that carry you away, claiming all of your attention, even when you know that there are a thousand other important things going on, urgent and troubling things, but also things that you can’t directly control, you can get a powerful feeling of living in the present, almost making time stand still. Just before suppertime a week ago Saturday, we started getting news on our phones about a terrible happening in Western Pennsylvania. It … Read More
Marking Time, Conventionally
What are your preferred ways of marking time? I mean besides clocks for the minutes and hours, and calendars for the weeks and months. What kinds of happenings — events that come around every so often — or tangible things prod you to reflect back on years gone by, and people no longer living? Remembering a Giant on the Field This framed photograph was among my brother Sandy’s possessions, some of which I have in a box downstairs. On the … Read More
A Year From Now …
This manuscript will become an actual book launched into the world. It’s been a journey all right. When I started this blog, almost 13 years ago, I sensed that I was headed in this direction — kept a big blue three-ring binder which I called my “clergy wife journal,” tried to capture particular moments that felt at once ordinary and also spectacular, began to write essays that got published in the local newspaper. Eventually, I started drafting a couple of … Read More
Plants, Pentecost, and Playoffs
Sometimes, try as you might to make sense of how everything fits together — wanting one thing to be the piece that fills the empty space next to another piece, complementing it and maybe even lending additional meaning — you end up having to recognize, probably with a sigh, that it’s all really more of a jumble. Completed puzzle with straight edges all around, making one appealing picture? Nope. You’re better off granting each squiggly thing its own integrity, without … Read More
Not Much Spring In My Step
This past Sunday morning, after I’d heard the whirring of Rob’s hybrid car as it pulled out of the driveway for a church destination an hour away, I thought I might relish the freedom of having plenty of time to get moving. I even got to see some warblers busying themselves about a dozen feet away, twittering as they moved amidst the catkins hanging from the birch branches outside the bedroom window. Oddly, though, while I was curious about the … Read More
Turning to Netflix, Finding Jesus
If it weren’t for his compassionate nature, it would be a tad intimidating to watch a series about the life of Jesus with my husband. There we sit next to one another — the two of us, and also the huge difference between his knowledge of the Bible and mine, almost a third individual. If the couch were a see-saw, I’d be way up there, dangling my legs, and he’d be solidly grounded — or wait, maybe the other way … Read More
Looking at Marriage Every Which Way
Anniversaries — of both happy and sad days — are worth pausing for, don’t you think? Sure, we need to keep putting one foot after another, moving forward and shaping the future rather than dwelling on the past, but a little reflection about our own personal histories helps us to integrate elements of our journeys. A Snowy Day Long Ago On this day, more than 80 years ago, my parents were married in Montreal. Canada, my mother’s country, had entered … Read More