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When we come to the end of the road
Disruption, chaos, brutality. Uncertainty, anxiety, fear. Where do we find comfort when it feels like the end of the road? There is no easy way through or out. Yet there…
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Setting the table
Setting the table for supper was my responsibility for some of my childhood years. Five forks, five knives, five spoons, five plates, five napkins. It was routine. It was part…
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Blossom/flourish, wither/perish
I can’t name the precise date when plants and their flowers past their prime began to fascinate me, but sometime in the last couple of years my camera with me…
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Listening to the quiet voices
It is easy for me to be overwhelmed and distracted by the loud voices filling our airwaves. You too hear them. Last week they included things like the air traffic…
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Confounding peace
When Sputnik, the first human-made satellite to orbit the earth, traveled across the skies over my hometown soon after its launch, my mom, dad and we three children were lying…
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Good?!Friday
Early one Friday morning, as the sky was beginning to lighten in the east, I made my way to the balcony with my breakfast tray in hand. As I turned…
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Lest innocent life be lost
March 27, 2025, marked the second anniversary of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, located on the same street where we now live. Two blocks away from our home. At…
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Cultivating the Calm
It was a loud, pre-dawn pounding on the front door of a high-school classmate’s home that interrupted several of my friends and me who were just moving into sound sleep…
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Together in One Place
An exhibit of Munro Lights at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens, Nashville, TN was the setting and inspiration of this image. Each of us is a unique expression of light. Together, we…
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Assumptions
As I waited for my dermatologist to arrive in my cubicle for my annual checkup, a young—and I mean young—woman breezed in. After a quick glance at her, I was…
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The yolk’s on us
One of the headlines on the front page of the Tennessean today (02.07.25) reads: “Egg price spikes, shortages to persist.” It brought to mind a Bible story. Once when Jacob…
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The only leaf…
This past week I attended a funeral…as did three of my friends. Four separate funerals; four persons eulogized. Also, an eighty-something friend told me all her close friends have died.…
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The art of blanketing
Single-digit temperatures here in Nashville took me to the closet recently to retrieve from the upper shelf an extra blanket to make for warm nighttime sleeping. As I pulled down…
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Something there is…
I spent last week remembering the legacy of President Jimmy Carter. From Plains to Atlanta to the Capitol Rotunda to Washington National Cathedral back to Plains. In brief here are…
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Home Going
On the whole I’m not a collector of things. Over the years the one exception has been an assortment of nativity sets that I have gathered from my global travel.…
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The Lesson of the Pansies
For several weeks now I have been observing my balcony porch winter garden. It consists of two small red cedar trees, two box elders, and seven pots of pansies. With…
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The Advent Imperative
A walk through a Nashville church plus a healthy dose of imagination created the image above.
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Injured forever
241216 The chief of police, Shon Barnes, in Madison, WI matter of factly reported the stats from the mass shooting at Abundant Life Christian School a week before Christmas: three dead…
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Sans solace
Sans solace / From the bombed building rubble / They pull a one-year-old child / A beautiful girl
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Waiting for the dawn
Waiting for the dawn, a traditional Native American ritual, has been through ups and downs, thick and thin, grief and joy, a daily practice for me. In these recent days,…
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Disassembly required
As autumn creeps into our consciousness, I’ve begun to hear a common seasonal exclamation: “Isn’t the cooler weather delightful!” I notice my internal response is “Yes…but…” Yes…to the reduction of…
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The hummers
The first sighting was made by my sister visiting from Texas. “Look!” She exclaimed as she pointed toward the porch. Looking up, we discovered within eyeshot a tiny hummingbird flitting…
