Category: Uncategorized

I wish I had known

I wish I had known. A poem’s preamble:   I wonder if the women becoming bishops and Politicians are not simply Climbing the ladder of Patriarchy by becoming Patriarchs?   I wonder if the cowardly leadership Of a dominating Patriarch is taking Rather longer to die that we originally Thought....

The Power of Disruption

The briefest of looks back into world history will unveil many disruptions.  There are of course natural disasters, extramarital affairs unearthed, and the silences after a knock-down-drag-out-fight.  There are disruptions like after whatever killed the dinosaurs.  And then there are the silences in the streets of Paris after the French...

Astonished

“We were made and set here, the writer Annie Dillard once wrote, "to give voice to our astonishments."  The word “astonish” comes from two ancient words “ex” and “tonare”.  The word “ex” meant “out of” and “tonare” meant “thunder.”  In other words, (literally, in other words!) astonish means to be as one might...

courage

For a time, I was a full-time fundraiser, thirty years ago.  Then, for a time, I was a full-time priest and monk and priest again - twenty years ago.  Two years ago I began to experience The Church as an alcoholic family system.  Not everyone experiences the Church that way...

Giggles

If Kai-the-dog were able to speak, I think he would giggle.  Labs seem to have a giggle inside them. I have never met a Greyhound, for example, that seemed to be stifling a giggle and yet Labs seem to be doing it all the time. When he sleeps his little...

not so sure…but calm

  Life on this cliff in the Salish Sea can get weird. Because Whidbey Island is so beautiful, there are a lot of very wealthy people who live here and many live on Edgecliff Road near me and this park. There are CEO’s and retired CEO’s and ladies who “divorced...

Advent Masks

The masks we wear, no matter how glamorous, just get in the way of living life.  Someone recently asked me to define “spirituality” which places an Episcopal Priest rather on the spot. It took me a while to break the lump in my throat enough to speak my answer in...

the little classroom

“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper At this time of year, I...

The Serpent’s Tail

A wreath made from beach findings on Friday Harbor on San Juan Island here, in Puget Sound, in the Salish Sea. Toward the end of the 16th century, a word was coined from the root word “wer” meaning to twist or bend from which the word “wreath” came.  It was...

Pustules and playfulness- the artist’s dilemma

Tea Bowl (Chawan) # 21 in a series. November 2019, Whidbey Island Pottery is a craft that never ceases to humble one.  Humility - the word - comes from “humus” or “earth.” Digging clay, processing it into readiness for the potter’s wheel and then spinning it - twirling it -...