March in Limbo
Houses have a stay-in-one-place, rooted quality to them. Life, on the other hand, is mostly made up of transitions, mood changes, shifts large and small. Or at least this is how it looks to me from my current perspective. And…
Preachers’ Wives and Daughters Tell it on the Telly
These days, I’m a little confused about whether the main function of television is to give us a break from our regular lives or to reveal aspects of other people’s lives that may in turn shed light on our own. …
Cardinals in the Conclave, People in the Pews
My foraging for juxtapositions is often rewarded by coming upon a page in the daily newspaper, something – who knows – we may not have around much longer. This past Sunday, on the first page of its International section, the…
Our Marriage, His Airness
Leave it to my husband, the new bishop, to have a totally offbeat take on that glorious picture of Michael Jordan’s dunk. This week’s Sports Illustrated (a magazine to which I happily subscribe even with older son off at college)…
Pass the Roles, Please
My bank account is hardly bulging these days, but I sure can claim wealth in Shakespeare. And just in case reading Hamlet with my students tipped the scales too much towards tragedy (what else can it ever be?) I also…
A Panorama of Plenty, Just Not on The Page
Let’s face it, sometimes we can really hold up a single contrast, look at it from different angles and enjoy it. Other times, however, so many different things collide at once that we have all we can do just to…
We Are What We Say, or Are We?
Good ol’ Hamlet sure has a way with words. The soliloquys are great, of course, but he also knows how to use language just for amusement. His very first lines in the play are sheer fooling around: When the usurper…
New Year, New Shakespeare
There’s one sure thing about New Year’s Day: those of us who are attached to schools know we’re about to go back. This particular January, I am fortunate to be embarking upon Hamlet with my seniors in a place bearing…
The Clergy Wife Before Christmas, Once Again
For the first time in many years – almost since we’ve been married – my husband won’t be preaching at Christmas Eve services this evening. He also won’t be a shepherd in any children’s pageant. (In a funny accompaniment, he…
If We Lived There, Would We Be Home By Now?
I just heard on the radio that, while the Republicans and Democrats duke it out in these days before the impending fall over the Fiscal Cliff, Corporate America is “clamoring for compromise.” Oh, good ol’ Corporate America! Not being one…