people
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Move
On our street, we bring treats to new neighbors. I remember thirteen years ago, walking with my then six-year old daughter a few doors down to leave a wrapped banana bread on a covered porch in the rain. We couldn’t have known then that our new neighbors would become our dear friends, couldn’t have guessed…
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People
It was a few minutes before the ten o’clock mass, and still no sign of the celebrant. He was a fill-in from a local Catholic college, someone we had met before and really liked, so we were looking forward to our time together in worship. But as the minutes ticked past ten, there was a…
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Namaste
I was putting my strawberries and avocados on the checkout counter at the farm stand when I saw him. A baby boy just old enough to sit in the front of the cart with a tiny Red Sox cap on his little head. He was looking at me before I saw him, and I got…
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Tribe
Binary thinking. We see it played out today in our culture, our politics, and on our television screens. It’s black and white, hot and cold, with us or against us. As I get older, I see the danger of this kind of thinking. For one, it’s inflexible and betrays a kind of arrogance, but also,…
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True
This week, I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by goodness. Gatherings, messages, connection, kindness, inclusion, and gosh, I love that stuff. It’s like fuel to me to be seen and known, appreciated and valued. And more, I love doing that for others, making them feel loved and seen, and I had a good bit of…
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Inter net
The internet is a scary place to be these days. I see all too frequent attacks, one “friend” to another, such fierce accusations against character and morality, that it makes you wonder what these same people would say in person, face-to-face with a friend. It makes me long for a compulsory social media etiquette class,…
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Independence
I’ve heard people speak of it on podcasts, in backyards, in my yoga studio, and in church. Some think it’s economic, others spiritual, others political or even technological, but it’s amazing to me the numbers of people who seem lately to be feeling a rumbling under their feet, like something is about to fundamentally change,…
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Like
If Andrew McCarthy and I were to actually be in a room together, meet, and have one conversation, I am sure we would get married, or so thought fourteen-year-old me after seeing ‘Heaven Help Us’ and ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ within a few months of each other. I saw something of myself in those performances and…
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Control
Gun control. Gay rights. Terrorism. Hate. Election 2016. What happened in Orlando provokes a response about many of the political issues of the day, and rightly so, but all of it mostly leaves me shaking my head. These were fifty people, someone’s babies, defenseless, and they were murdered in cold blood, horror, and fear. This…
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Work
I have been sick for about a month with an upper respiratory illness that has affected how I hear, sing, and breathe, and it’s been hard to do those things in my work as a preschool music teacher, but mostly, I’ve managed. Yesterday, I had to call in sick for the first time in forever,…