I’ve been rather quiet for a while. Let me explain why. Of course, there was Christmas. We did only a bit of decorating, but not as much as usual. I cooked a few foods traditional to our household, and baked some cookies for giving away, but not as much as usual. We didn’t attend any…

I’ve been thinking about Advent and the ways God breaks into our lives, usually at times and in places we least expect it. Sometimes we don’t recognize what happened until later. All this reminded me of an experience in my past, a gift of grace in a difficult time. * * * Wayne, Jeremy, and…

Life feels full of questions right now, with answers and certainty sadly missing. That is why it was appealing to put to rights a world I can control—Doll House Land where house cleaning and reorganizing was due. For the past year the doll house has stood uncovered in the middle of the basement room. It…

I am fast losing those in the generation above me. My father and mother have been gone for years, followed by many of their siblings and cousins. While I have not lost any of my uncles or aunts to the pandemic, they are continuing to slip away, their passing made more poignant because I can’t…

The lights dimmed. Chatter subsided. Cate took her place on the stool in the center of the small stage, tossed her hair out of her face, played a few warming-up chords on her guitar, and then paused. “I want you all to imagine there is a klezmer band here tonight—imagine a rollicking clarinet and an…