Thanksgiving Tale

As Thanksgiving approaches, I’m excited to gather with family and friends, eat good food, play music, and relax. My kids live away from home now, so I’m especially looking forward to spending a few days with them. We always celebrate the holiday with friends who have children the same ages. We grew up together, the …

Baptism Musings

Sun streams in the stained-glass windows, creating mottled patterns of red and purple on the faces of the people standing in front of the sanctuary. One of them holds a baby girl in a lace dress and tights, a tiny corsage on each shoe. “By what name will you call this child?” the minister asks, …

Thinking about numbers

24 April 2018 I’ve always loved the number 24. The first of a series of even numbers, pairs, couples. Two and four always, by their very nature, have a partner in 1 and 3. Never alone. My sister’s birthday is the 24th, today, and I was always envious of her when we were kids. My …

The Death of Jesus

Easter has always perplexed me with its fixation on Jesus dying on a cross. I remember several years ago when my daughter, then five years old, first saw an image of the crucifixion at an art museum. She stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling sculpture and stared in horror. “What happened to him?” Having seen …

Brown Bread for Communion

Brown bread for communion At our last Racial Justice Ministry meeting, a discussion of white privilege led to an examination of white images in our church. Were there any that we could change? We talked about pictures of white Jesus and white doves, but we also looked at other symbols that are typically white, like …

Are doves always white?

The email came to my inbox this afternoon. It was from the national office of the United Church of Christ advertising a weekend dedicated to talking about racial justice and white privilege. Why did it make me feel so uncomfortable? I finally figured it out. It was the logo at the top of the page: …

Who are you calling “deplorable”?

Dear Hillary, You have no right to call anyone “deplorable”, not half of the Trump supporters, not even a tenth, not one. Deplore their actions or their values if you want, but to call citizens of this country “deplorable” insults them and tramples on their fundamental rights. It is definitely not Presidential. I am a …

The Great Surya Bonaly

The Great Surya Bonaly Yesterday while I was ironing, I listened to a Radiolab podcast entitled On the Edge that focused on Surya Bonaly, the French figure skater best known for her daring back flips. No one else has been able to achieve what she has. In fact, what she did is so difficult that …

Buffy Deals with Death

I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes recently and have become a huge fan. I love the show so much that I cannot bring myself to “binge” watch it. Instead, I savor one or two episodes a day, like squares of fine chocolate. Today, I found myself sobbing through the 16th episode in season …

Perceiving sounds

28 April 2016 I’ve found out something very interesting in sound perception. When I am not actively listening to music, I can tune out annoying sounds pretty easily. But when I am listening to a piece of music, especially something classical or finely tuned (that is, not rock music with electric guitars), I start noticing …