Surviving and Staying Warm
Happy Advent, friends! In the Christian liturgy, Advent is the season leading up to Christmas Day. It’s a season of preparation and waiting. Advent is from the Latin “to come.” [...]
Bad Luck. Good Luck. Who Knows?
I heard Susan Piver talk recently about the “three poisons” in Buddhist teaching—what we reach for when things fall apart. One of them is “aggression.” This doesn’t mean resisting things [...]
Without You There is No Me
I was reminded this week of the concept of ubuntu which Desmond Tutu popularized: We are only who we are thanks to other people. This stands in stark contrast to [...]
Being With It
I’m writing less than 24 hours after the election was called. If I didn’t owe my wonderful assistant Robin this newsletter by tonight, I’d be tempted to hide out. I [...]
Making Room for Grief this Election Season
It’s a big week for all of us. I haven’t used this platform to talk about the election, but it’s too much on my mind this week to pretend I’m [...]
Doing it for Love
In my corner of the world there’s been some very public, hard news about an important non-profit and I’m supporting some other groups having a hard time or recovering from [...]
Life Purpose at Any Age
I recently listened to Julia Louis Dreyfuss interview Jane Goodall. Julia asks Jane how it feels to be 90 and Jane says, “Well, I know what my mission on this [...]
More Singing
Laura and I led our monthly singing circle last night (one-year anniversary!), and I am still buzzing from it. At one point, someone taught a new song. We did call-and-response [...]
None of us Get Out Alive
My friend Emily recently attended her friend Trudy’s “Last Hurrah” party. Emily and Trudy have known one another for 20 years in the context of chaplaincy work. Trudy is 86, [...]
Last Prayer of Summer
I’m reading Luther Allen’s book of poems, The View from Lummi Island, a poem a day from the San Juan Islands. As fall begins, he says, the days shorten [...]