Category: Essays

  • A hyacinth for our Country’s Soul . . .

    With pen and tablet I watched Morning Joe and felt I was auditing a class with Joe Scarborough and Jon Meacham, both knowledgeable speaking about the fragility of our democracy.  And the lasting words of Professor Meacham were the thunderous grievances of our previous leaders that cannot thought to be ended. But in fulness and…

  • To Break The Waves, enough it is. . . .

    (sometimes in the midst of memories, I need to be reminded of what mattered most.  And if I need this, perhaps a reader does also.  The memory is now fresh for me.  I appreciate the chance for reprinting a favorite one.) After having been told a zillion times that no one would want my head, …

  • The Spirit Within Speaks. . .

    In reviewing  this poem,  I was surprised to see the journal entry so I read it anew.  And the last paragraph of the two pages typed was the lament that I had a head with so much to say I felt I was going to die.  And I wrote the words of St. Paul,  ‘it…

  • Often the Larger Picture is Universal Life. . enhanced. . .

    Jon Meacham, historian,  told the story of when President Reagan was in the hospital after being shot he was wiping up some water in the bathroom when a surprised visiting President Bush asked him what he was doing.  I spilled water and I didn’t want the nurse to get blamed for it he said.  These…

  • Our Light That Shines. . . .

    Sometimes we find when we are not on good terms with ourselves,  life is not sympathetic to how we are feeling.  Yet we fulfill what is demanded and later are grateful that someone stands beside us when we are in need.  We hope that whatever we offered is regarded not with impatience we might have…

  • Connected Still. . with AAhhh Mann and Amen. .

    I wish I had remembered  when I was trying to convince a young grandniece that indeed not all people know enough to worry and that worrying is an advanced form of thinking.  How can you not worry when you have made babies and commitments? But when you are unsure of your own survival, it is…

  • Ordinary, but real. . . . .

      Again, in that conference time when all is quiet, you cannot go back to not knowing, once having attained what it is you know.  Quantum, sumus, scimus.  You are what you know.  And what you know is yours forever.  The talents, the Master spoke of,  no one understood to teach.  What moth and rust…

  • It Takes Many Lifetimes to Learn. . . .

    Word reaches that there are issues with some of my  posts that  are unreal;  that perhaps I don’t know how the real world works.  I write what I know, not  hope or pretend.  As Lawrence O’Donnell commented on  President Biden’s Inaugural, experience is  something you cannot teach.  We always knew it, I think,  just never…

  • I held your heart in my hand . . . it is whole . . . .

    We need to come to a place now and again when it is necessary to find a mind matched to ours so we can for all purposes say all that is heavy on our hearts.  With no explanation necessary because our route has been followed step by step;  to hear the words,  I held your…

  • When Scribing With Heart . . .

    I wrote this letter to Jane and when I finished I realized that I scribed it.  Because it was of my heart that I wrote, and it was a personal letter, I had to ask permission to post it.  There are so many important sentences with lessons involved, that if I was a teacher with…