I'm sitting on the beach of a beautiful Vermont lake, as my kids and hubby sleep. I don't hear the loons this morning, just the crashing of gentle waves. And here I am checking my email and blogging, since Internet comes in here intermittently and probably won't where we're going next. This vacation has shown [...]

The fracas over health care reform is making me think of George Lakoff’s book The Political Mind, which I reviewed a year ago. Lakoff discusses what he calls “privateering”—the privatization of previously public functions like education, prisons, and even security in Iraq—pointing out that government is accountable to the public in ways that corporations are not. [...]

It’s that point in the summer. Camp is over, and my kids are sitting around arguing about whether Paul McCartney’s bare feet on the Abby Road cover prove that Paul is dead and that guy whose been collecting his royalties (and paying his alimony) all these years is just a big faker. By the way, did [...]

I finally gave away my mother’s wedding dress a few weeks ago. When she died three and a half years ago, I didn’t linger over her possessions or procrastinate their disposal. She paid rent by the month, so there was an incentive to get going on the task, which fit my disposition anyway. After a year of caring for my mother, keeping vigil in her apartment during her waning hours, I was prepared to let go.

So, this is my inaugural blog post over here in the new digs. It’s been fun to see over four years of blog posts move with me. Skimming down the list I’ve realized that there are common themes that seem to repeat: children and consumerism; work/family balance (especially in the summer); simple living struggles. I found one that seems particularly timely, even though I wrote Pool Politics four years before a private pool in suburban Philadelphia made international news...

Before last week’s FGC Gathering, one of the scheduled plenary speakers, Shane Claiborne, challenged the planners to offset the carbon that would be released into the atmosphere as a result of his travel to the event. As many of you know, some people purchase carbon offsets to support initiatives aimed at reducing global warming and to [...]

Bonnie Tinker is still teaching that Love Makes a Family, the name of the organization she founded. The mortician who cared for her body in Virginia was moved—both by her condition after being crushed by a trash truck and by the love in the room as he met with her family and a few friends [...]

I’ve spent the week at Friends General Conference Gathering, leading a workshop on The Wisdom to Know the Difference and connecting with friends from around the country, some of whom I only see at this annual gathering. One such friend, Bonnie Tinker, was killed yesterday at the conference when her bike was run over by [...]

Once a year, my friend Melissa Haertsch gets me to write a poem for a poetry/visual art collaboration she organizes. This year's theme is water, and here is this year's result:Abundance and ScarcityLake Seneca is full,like the septic tank,so we wash with dribblesand flush sparinglywhile neighbors spraythe suburban carpetthat has replaced wetlandsoutside Milwaukee.Hindus worship the sacredGanges [...]

I was gearing up to write a post about how I haven’t figured out the purpose of Twitter, except we were scrambling to go to the Finger Lakes, where I don’t have regular Internet access. I was going to question the usefulness of hearing when someone I don’t know has gotten up or brushed her [...]