This week, hope has been on my mind. Hope of better things. Hope of kinder days. Hope of justice, respect, compassion, quality of life. Hope that things will turn out okay, for us all. In particular, I’ve been hoping that the newborn baby finches in our aviary at hospice will all make it successfully through […]
Read more "The Risk of Hope"This year I took a simplified approach to my gardening because I knew it was going to be a busy summer. I bought the plants and seeds; I drew out a plan. I got everything in the ground in mid-May, when the soil dried out enough for planting. Of the three raised garden beds I […]
Read more "A Matter of Will"I’m going to start our message today with a confession. Most weekday nights last week, as the PBS Newshour signed off the air, I found myself standing about five feet from my television, watching intently, usually in tears. My heart was deeply touched by the stories anchor Judy Woodruff tells at end of the newscast […]
Read more "What Love Will Do"The title of our message today—and the idea behind it—comes to us a courtesy of a tweet from Pope Francis. Early on Monday, he sent out a message, saying: “Let’s look at the ‘saints next door’ who, with simplicity, respond to evil with good, have the courage to love their enemies and to pray for […]
Read more "The Saints Next Door"Fifteen years ago I was working as a chaplain at St. Vincent Hospital and I was on call one weekend when I was paged by a nurse in the emergency room. They had just had a death—a woman in cardiac arrest—and her son, a cognitively challenged adult who functioned at about the level of a […]
Read more "An Innocent Faith"One evening last week I had the television on while I was doing something on the computer, and the British drama Grantchester was on in the background. The show is about an Anglican clergyman in Grantchester, England, who finds himself swept into all sorts of mysteries and mayhem. I watched it years ago in the […]
Read more "Just Wondering"Are you finding it a bit of a challenge to feel grateful right now? If so, you’re not alone. Daily the headlines remind us that things are continuing to worsen in our nation—the virus is spreading, the economy is struggling, people are losing their jobs across all industries, there may be a tsunami of evictions […]
Read more "Gratitude Is Your Superpower"It’s hard to believe that we are already to that part of the summer when the blackberries are beginning to ripen on the vine. The lettuce and kale are up and ready for harvesting; there are green tomatoes on the sprouting bushes; the cucumber and summer squash have big, bell-shaped yellow blossoms, and the wildflowers […]
Read more "By Their Fruits"Happy Fourth of July! I hope you celebrated in a safe and distant way yesterday, if you did celebrate. There were lots of fireworks in our neighborhood last night, but it seemed a bit calmer and less loud than previous years, which was a welcome change. As you probably heard, especially if you were planning […]
Read more "Then and Now"Good morning, Friends. Our message this morning could also be called, “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” I mentioned to a friend last week that I was hoping I would have a week of “prayerful gardening.” And it turned out to be that and more. I’ve been feeling peaceful and quiet internally, which means I […]
Read more "The Quiet of Home"