With these instructions, we embarked on a ten-day trip “On the Face of the Deep.” The Mediterranean Sea was our “deep,” and our stops were on Greek islands and in Turkish coastal cities. This trip has been brewing for us since 2020 when our first plan was one of the many events canceled due to…

It is Ordinary Time, that is if you follow the liturgical year. Ordinary Time fills the space between the seasons of Advent-Christmas and Lent-Easter-Pentecost; ordinary from the Latin ordinalis, meaning numbered. Week one, week two, week three. . . after Christmas or after Pentecost. To most of us, the word ordinary suggests what is usual,…

The other evening we had dinner with friends who talked about their recent travels in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. Their tour centered on the 500-year anniversary of the beginning of the Anabaptist movement out of which Mennonites emerged. Our friends visited places where early Anabaptists were imprisoned, tortured, and killed, as well as places where…

We are now well past Ash Wednesday, more than half of the way to Easter and I’m pondering ashes. Not because I have any in my non-working fireplace. Not because my house itself has become ashy due to fires, as is true for many in California. Not because my house or town has been pulverized…

Lately, I’ve been pondering the power of connections. What is it about them that draws us in, delights us, lifts our spirits? The other day on NPR I heard part of an interview with an author about the loneliness epidemic in our culture, where even exchanges with checkout people in stores have been diminished by…

Sometimes it takes only one phrase of a hymn to carry me through the week. That’s what happened for me this past Sunday. We sang the hymn, “God of the Bible.” (I’ll include all the lyrics for the word nerds.) While it wasn’t the first time we’ve sung it, the song is still in the…

Part 1 Monday morning the temperature hovered around freezing, and I stepped out on our screened-in porch to see how cold it felt. Raucous crow calls assaulted my ears, and I almost instinctively turned to look into the evergreen tree just outside the screen, to see what might be happening. Much larger than the cardinals,…

It feels impossible to condense Lauree into words—her vibrancy, her expansive spirit, her utter delight in life. Everything about Lauree was unique, starting with her name (accent on the second syllable, which is pronounced to rhyme with tree). She lived simply and richly, delighting in the beauty of nature, savoring complexity, and finding joy in…

This title may be misleading as you probably think this is my reflection. Not so. In researching for another project, I came across this essay by my grandmother, Myra Kendig Lehman. As I read it, I was struck by the ways I sound like her, both in what she says and the way she reflects…

We were nearing the end of our week of travel, carefully orchestrated to include a family reunion (Wayne), a day of hiking and scenic views at the Delaware Water Gap, a visit to the Icon Museum in Clinton, MA, and visits with multiple friends. The last stop in our trip was still coming up—Brooklyn for…