Living Well

  • Click

    Once I travelled south to New York City with my daughter for the day to see a show and go back home again. On the same day, another woman travelled north with her son to see the same show. We sat a row apart and did not meet. She reads Shauna Niequist, loves her family…

  • Advent

    https://christynockels.com/wp-content/uploads/amaryllis-square-podcast-image.jpg Advent is right on time this year. The word Advent embodies hope and remembrance and anticipation of something bursting through, of light coming into darkness. Advent is active, stretching and seeking for something we know is on its way. And it’s joyful; even though we’re waiting in darkness, we know the light will come.…

  • Round

    When I heard the news that my first music teacher had died, I thought what most of her thousands of students probably did: Ta ta ti ti ta    ti ti ti ti ta ta It was a sweet way to teach basic sight-reading. On a huge, poster size flip board were illustrations and simple syllables…

  • Door

    I am always sending things out: ideas, emotions, hope, and it sometimes seems that I am sending these things out into a shapeless void. I place pieces of my heart in sealed envelopes, put them in my outgoing mail, and never hear anything ever again. This is a false view, of course, and self-centered and…

  • Count

    My vote doesn’t count. As a resident in a state that will go decidedly one way, you could say that my vote doesn’t make a difference. So why, you may ask, have I tortured myself, then, in watching every minute of every debate this year? Why have I taken in more information and more hate…

  • Dad

    When I doubt and worry and despair, I sometimes need to check myself regarding what I believe about the nature of God. If I feel abandoned, that must mean that God is careless. If I feel shaken, maybe I believe God is not powerful. If I feel lonely, maybe my image of God is not…

  • Process

    I am running so super slowly all over town, and even though it’s mortifying, it’s by design. All of the best advice I’ve heard about increasing mileage is to extend your longest run of the week by time, not distance, and to run it as slowly as you can bear it. As I meander through…

  • Grateful

    Today I heard a homily from our beloved deacon and, even more so than in his words, I felt the force of his message really just in his presence alone. Our deacon lost his wife almost two months ago, and he is in the haze of grief that only those who have walked that road…

  • Waiting

    I don’t like waiting. Waiting for something important feels, for me, like a racing heart and a pit in my stomach and like my small voice echoing in a canyon: I AM ALONE. In the season in which I waited to get pregnant with Brian, I agonized and strived and pleaded with God. Two years…

  • Sing

    I am pretty sure I sang flat for almost all of Mass today. There was a monitor issue, and one of my ears is a bit blocked, and (insert excuse here), but I wasn’t happy with what I was doing and not entirely sure that any ministry I may have been attempting was hitting its…