After speculating about the “what if’s” of war prevention last week, I’m now focused on a different kind of what if—the averted tragedy. While sitting at the dining room table with my daughter yesterday afternoon, I literally watched a huge tree limb peel off of the trunk like a band-aid. It stretched from our neighbor’s [...]
After promoting my friend Signe Wilkinson last blog post, she repaid the favor by sending me this challenge from New York Post writer Ralph Peters:Please, educate me: In over 5,000 years of more or less recorded history, how many tyrannies have been overthrown by noble sentiments? How many genocides have been averted by reasonable discussions? [...]
I am basking in the warm glow of community and friendship this week. In the aftermath of Gathering, it has been nice connecting (online and in person) with people I met there. Natural Mom—an online friend who came to my parenting interest group—wrote a wonderful post about how supported she felt there with two children, [...]
For those of you who don’t know, FGC Gathering is an annual week of Quaker worship, fun and learning that takes place in a different spot every summer. This year it was in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a very reasonable train ride from Philadelphia, which my son and I took, along with scores of other Quakers, while [...]
It's been a wonderful week, visiting three different groups of friends, catching up on news, reviewing the year, enjoying nature. From northern Pennsylvania we went to the Finger Lakes, to the clear, cold waters of Skaneateles (pronounced Skinny-atlas). I only mustered the courage to go swimming twice. (Ice water is not my favorite habitat.) My [...]
It’s our first full day of vacation away on an old estate that includes an overgrown orchard, a straw bale greenhouse with a grass roof, and a pond. We’re visiting the family we hung out when the girls were babies, and my friend Melissa and I traded a few hours of babysitting so we could [...]
After years of plodding along with my writing, there are suddenly bits of exciting news. My goal had been to complete a draft of my book by the time school got out, and I am happy to report that I did that and mailed it off Saturday! I’m also happy to say that the Pendle [...]
I’ve been coming to appreciate beauty as a spiritual path, as something that brings people joy and an appreciation of God. However you define feeling “spiritual”—I think of it as the realization of being connected to something greater than ourselves—people find that feeling in different places. I don’t just mean that some people find it [...]
I used to keep a gratitude journal, a place to record those little blessings that come each day, but which are easy to overlook. Here are a few recent ones that I don't want to forget:Amtrak, which has been pleasant and prompt the four times I've taken it in the last week, and New York [...]
I know it’s a cliché, but be careful what you wish for. I have been fantasizing about getting a Prius lately, mostly so I’ll feel less guilty for all the driving I do, but it didn’t seem justifiable with two cars working. The Toyota Camry, which is the car I primarily drove, had 103,000 miles [...]