just enough light

During Lent I have been reading Parker Palmer’s On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old. Early in the book Parker quotes St. Benedict, “Daily keep your death before your eyes.” This may sound like morbid advice, but the intention is anything but morbid. We are admonished to remember our impermanence and the […]

My son’s dog, Clara, recently provided me with some useful perspective about pain and suffering. During my recent visit to the Midwest, I spent 4 days in Urbana. I timed the visit to be there when Clara was scheduled for surgery to remove her right rear leg. She was injured when she was younger, and […]

Much has transpired since my last Lenten entry almost 3 weeks ago. During that time I spent 8 days in St. Louis helping my dad prepare to move. I also visited my kids and some friends in Urbana, IL for a few days. During my time in Urbana, I mentioned to Dennis, a friend of […]

I’ve thought about my last entry about giving up childhood fears. I don’t think the goal is to give up childhood fears. The goal is to give up the addictive thinking that those fears produce. I suspect we all have that addictive thinking. Here’s what I mean. As I described a couple of days ago, […]

I spent the first part of my day traveling by air from Abilene to St. Louis. I don’t much like traveling by air, but it is so often the quickest and most convenient way to go. Traveling by air brings up all kinds of control issues for me. Of course, control issues are usually grounded […]

Several years ago, when I began considering an early retirement, I was not too worried about being bored. I had already made the decisions that I wanted to spend much of my time working as a handyman, for myself and others. I also wanted to write. My bigger concern was the idea that I would […]

Mandate: “Don’t be lazy.” Corollary: “Stay busy. If you aren’t busy, look busy.” I’m not sure if “Don’t be lazy” was a spoken mandate, but I certainly internalized it as a driving force in my daily routine. During childhood, my brothers and I were active, always up to something. And my parents were busy, Mom […]

My continued series about unloading my wagon of emotional baggage: “Don’t disappoint others.” This was one of many mandates I internalized during my childhood. This comes from my earliest role and my perceived job in the family. That’s the subject of a bunch of writing I don’t have time for now. This need to not […]

I’ve been writing about a box of papers this week, tossing out things that were once important but are no longer. Encumbrances. That process will continue from now on, because I continue to accumulate stuff (clothes, books, tools, etc.) and then have to make room for it by getting rid of other stuff. The junk […]

Faith does not inoculate us from struggle. Religious practice does not protect us from calamity. My spiritual autobiography written my first semester in seminary (I wrote about it on Tuesday), did not include these observations. It was an airbrushed account of a well-intentioned, but largely unexamined faith. The description of my family was idealized by […]