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Tale of an Inch Plant
On March 25, 2021 | 5 Comments

  It was clear that I had killed it. I couldn’t pretend otherwise. That I had managed to kill it while trying to take care of it, while employing long-practiced skills in extending the life of an outdoor thing that lives inside didn’t really matter. The plant was dead. Lynne said as much when she […]

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Some Questions on the Death of a Cat
On December 8, 2020 | 4 Comments

There is a place within us that can be reached by intelligence. But there is a deeper one that only the spirit can get to. And that is why those who are “merely completely intelligent” — in science or art, verse or prose — always seem like spies.  ~Juan Ramon Jimenez, The Complete Perfectionist   […]

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On Leaving
On November 10, 2020 | 2 Comments

This is a repost. I wrote it in July of 2007 after our last visit to 1126 Carroll Lane in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, the house where my in-laws blended their families of sons when my husband was sixteen years old. I fell in love with my husband there in April of 1988. We brought our babies […]

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On the Back Porch (looking at a poem by Dorianne Laux)
On August 4, 2020 | 4 Comments

  The cat calls for her dinner.  (This is a post about a poem, and these are some of its lines:) On the porch I bend and pour  brown soy stars into her bowl, stroke her dark fur.  No. It’s not a poem about a cat, although here at the beginning one might think it […]

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Waiting on God in a Pandemic
On April 16, 2020 | 4 Comments

Click here to download the audiofile:  Waiting on God in a Pandemic Or listen here:     First thing every morning, before I even open my eyes, I listen for what I don’t hear: school bus brakes, construction’s rattle. Neighbors’ cars pulling out of driveways and the distant wind of traffic on I-40. These days […]

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Teaching the Gospel to Children: Foster Intimacy, part 1
On February 12, 2020 | 6 Comments

This is the third post in a series meant to be preceded by an introductory letter. Please read that here.    Foster Intimacy   “Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you’re feeling. To have the […]

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Teaching the Gospel to Children: Grow Up.
On February 4, 2020 | 2 Comments

This is the second post of a series meant to be preceded in reading by an introductory letter. Please read that HERE.  Grow Up. “Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.” ~ W. E. B. Du Bois   “There’s a world of difference between insisting on someone’s doing something and establishing […]

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Teaching the Gospel to Children: Enjoy!
On January 29, 2020 | 4 Comments

This post is the first of a series, and is meant to be preceded in reading by an introductory letter. Please read that HERE. Enjoy Your Children “Children should be seen and not heard.” ~ English proverb   “The LORD your God is with you,  He is mighty to save.  He will take great delight […]

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Holiday Visitors
On January 4, 2020 | 6 Comments

The holiday season–that busy stretch of weeks between Thanksgiving and the New Year–is often filled with Comings and Goings. Someone traveling somewhere and remaining for a while. Guests. Visitors. We had many. Did you? Here’s the thing about Comings and Goings: some are more welcome than others. 

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A Merry Christmas Gift for You: A Child’s Christmas in Wales
On December 23, 2019 | 4 Comments

  Dear Friends, I wanted to give you something for Christmas. Something free and different. Yes, yes. I know that everything on this website is free (okay, well, if you click the links to my books you’ll see that the books aren’t free). And the Advent readings are certainly free. But they aren’t different. Okay, […]

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