A running joke in my family, is that our daughters were traumatized when they were young, by my reciting poetry in the family van.  As daughters K and L tell the story, their childhood was scarred by my reciting portions of poems as I drove them to dance classes, school events or on family vacations. To show that the trauma wasn’t too great and that their humor remained intact, the daughters in their teens, graced me (for Father’s Day) with a home made anthology of my favorite poets. The booklet was entitled ‘from the back of the van’ (in lower case a nod to ee.cummings). The introduction ..read more

I hear a lot of us saying: ‘I’m tired and I want life to get back to normal’.  I get that.  If normal means going to my local coffee shop, being with friends and family, going to school and church, taking a vacation, being employed….then, yes, I want that too. Yet, I think this difficult time provides and opportunity for us to think about what we want a post-pandemic life to look like.  Do we really want to go back to normal? What if what was normal wasn’t all that great? Is it normal that the 30 million Americans who lost their jobs in the past month, many of whom get health ca ..read more

In Celtic spirituality there is a Thin Place which separates the conscious world from that of the Spirit. Thin Places are the places and moments which transcend our daily preoccupations and transport us into a deeper awareness of what is and what can be. Thin Places are the moments that elicit awe, wonder, dare I say, reverence.  A deep seated belief that there is more going on than meets the eye. A truth that cannot be proven, measured or quantified. In my Christian tradition the Easter Season is full of appearance stories. Oftentimes the Risen Christ appears to the disciples but they do ..read more

This pandemic has thrown everything into disarray. Some of us are fortunate to be able to shelter in place in a home with room to move.  Others of us live on the streets, or live in crowded apartments where sheltering in place for safety is a fantasy. Those who work on the front lines: First responders, medical staff, grocery workers, delivery drivers, sanitation workers put themselves at risk from a spirit of service and because economically, there is no other choice. Others of us are newly unemployed or run a business that may not survive.  Graduating seniors wonder what their fut ..read more

In Celtic theology there is the concept of a thin place.  The Celts believed that there is a thin place, a permeable membrane that separates the conscious world from that of the Spirit. They believed (and believe) that there is another source of reality that is distinct from the world of the mind: Plans, projects, pride, worries.  This world of the mind is defined by the Greek word chronos.   Chonos is the root for chronological, defined by that which we are aware of and guided by. The Celts believed that beyond the life of the mind, beyond chronological time is a separate ..read more

For Christians like me, Good Friday is often that day in Holy Week to easily move past.  Many of us are more comfortable with the joyous entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, than we are with Good Friday. We’d much prefer moving on to the joy of Easter. Part of our discomfort is that we simply don’t want to deal with the pain that takes place between these two events.  Who wants to focus on betrayal, arrest, crucifixion and death? Our society in the USA (at least for white middle class folk like me), is built on the illusion that we are in control.  Captains of our ow ..read more

Our Governor just signed yet another executive order, setting further parameters for what people can and can’t do.  The purpose is to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 which is replicating at a dramatic rate here in Massachusetts and throughout the nation and world. Only essential services are open such as hospitals, gas stations, grocery stores and liquor stores.  The liquor stores in particular are doing a booming business as people try to cope. Which of course raises the question, apart from self medicating, how best to manage the stress that we all feel?  Allow me to remind u ..read more

Each day, seemingly each hour, we receive news of escalating efforts by government leaders, both national and state, to contain and mitigate the effects of the coronavirus crisis. We worry about our health, livelihoods, savings and the well- being of loved ones and our community. How does faith speak into the context of such a time?  Each of the world religions offer wisdom and sustenance for the challenges of real life, in real time. Within my Christian tradition, I draw upon these words from John 20:19 ‘On the evening of Easter, when the disciples were together with the doors ..read more

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