Category Archives: Uncategorized

I am back and thinking again. I don’t mean to say I don’t have thoughts when I travel, but the thoughts are traveling, too, so there is not the same kind of time to sit still with them. Perhaps that is one reason so many of us like our getaways — for that getaway fromContinue reading “Uncluttering the Path”

Because in my recent travels I have been logging miles, and hours, and words, and laughs, and meals. When we last left each other, I had just enjoyed a delightful birthday party Saturday night in the West Orange yard of my dear friend, circe. Well, Sunday came and off I went to visit my NewContinue reading “Travel-Log”

This is what I said when my birthday cake was presented to me last night. (Strawberry shortcake, thank you, circe)! People at the party seemed to think that statement was pretty profound, although maybe it sounds like resignation to some who are reading this. I had not meant it to be either. It was justContinue reading “I Have No More Wishes to Make”

In between church and Kool and the Gang I want to say a few things about July 4th. It is a holiday that I am most ambivalent about. “Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic,” begins Mr. Frederick Douglass in his famous speech, quoted so often (and sometimesContinue reading “What To YOU is the 4th of July?”

Today was an auspicious day: the first time I turned down an invitation since I got to Los Angeles. Why is that auspicious? Because I am in a new city, a place where I have had to start over making friends. I’ve been in this situation before, several times; it is a challenging and alsoContinue reading “Kissing Frogs Along the Way”

“If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic.” Toni Morrison, Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir Writing is the full experience of getting hit with an idea — or image, or sentence — and then getting all theContinue reading “Legacies of Fathers”

Last week I said I would write about fear this week. We’ll see what happens… Most every morning I read the devotional, Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence by Sarah Young. https://www.jesuscalling.com/ Last Thursday it read in part, “Let trust and thankfulness stand guard, turning back fear before it can gain a foothold.” IContinue reading “Onion or Fortress?”

Run-fromming. This is a word that Pastor Smith spoke in his message today. He said he mis-spoke it, but I am wondering if God didn’t just “drop that on his spirit,” as he is wont to say. Because, I mean, run-fromming is amazing, and an awfully useful term when you think it about it. It’sContinue reading “Running To and From”

Wouldn’t it be great if there were practice runs for losing loved ones? Like they pass on but just temporarily, so that you can do the work that seems to come out of losing someone close, and then get to use those lessons you’ve gained towards a better relationship. I’ve been doing a lot ofContinue reading “Puzzling Over People”

“You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ’em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird Is it friends ‘n’ family or friends versus family? Do we have to chooseContinue reading “Friends? Or Family? What’s it Gonna Be?”