This year in honor of Valentine’s Day, which is coming up on Tuesday, I felt inspired to get out the old autograph books I inherited from my great-grandfather Hugo’s early school life. The year was 1888, and Hugo was 12 when his classmates had written—in their best, fancy penmanship—short verses and bits of wisdom in […]
Read more "The Allness of Love"Have you ever noticed how good it feels to love? Whether we are spending time with our favorite people, cuddling with our four-footed beloveds, or doing something we just thoroughly enjoy doing, when we are loving, we are happy. Our hearts feel warm, our faces beam, our minds are calm. For those moments, when are […]
Read more "Loving Fearlessly"Early last week I cleaned my 29-gallon aquarium, draining roughly half the water, using a razor blade to scrape the algae off the sides of the tank, replanting the plants that my Plecostomus—who is 17 years old and 10 inches long—continually uproots. I refilled the tank with clean water and scrubbed the filter, repositioned the […]
Read more "A Common Bond"“That is how life can work, as God created it. We all fit together in a great and beloved community where one person’s gift fits another’s need and so there is no lack, no hunger, no division, no jealousy, no hate… It’s not such a far-fetched idea: all the trees around us are doing it right now. When we let God’s love inspire our actions in the world, our true and soulful colors will begin to show through. Our world can—even now–be transformed.”
Read more "The Measure of Love"Today is a sad and somber day, and it probably always will be. The 9-11 Memorial services are going on now, as family members read the names of the loved ones they’ve lost and continue to grieve, and firefighters ring the bell commemorating each precious life. Every September 11th I feel echoes of the sadness, […]
Read more "Overruling Fear"When you think back over the last week, how much of God’s light do you think you shared with others? How often did you feel it yourself? We rarely think of looking at life that way or gauging the success of our days based on how often we smiled, how many times we were kind, […]
Read more "Let Your Light Shine"Good morning, Friends! I felt inspired to begin posting brief daily reflections on our Quaker Morning page again yesterday and just wanted to let you all know. There isn’t really a game plan for these mini-podcasts; I simply want to share the ideas that bubble up during my quiet time at the start of the […]
Read more "Quaker Morning Dawns (again)"I went to the State Fair yesterday with my son Christopher and daughter-in-law Ashley. It was an absolutely beautiful morning for it. We enjoyed all the animals and the displays—and discovered a big white ribbon on my son’s photography entry, which made us all happy. And of course, there was the food: I had a […]
Read more "Food Is Love"What is your favorite memory of your mom? Maybe it had something to do with baking cookies, or nighttime prayers, or a time you really made her laugh. One of my sweetest, happiest memories with my mom is just a little snapshot in my mind, as she and I walked together in downtown Indianapolis one […]
Read more "The Mothering Spirit"How many kindnesses did you experience this week? Did someone let you go first in line when your arms were full of groceries? Or give you the right of way in traffic when you didn’t really deserve it? Or maybe a kindly person bought you coffee or lunch or sent you a card or otherwise […]
Read more "Love’s Everyday Miracles"
The Space between the Words 