Notes from Vanaprastha:
Reflections on Faith, Nature, and Writing
Consume: to eat, drink, buy, buy, buy, and use it up
Keith and I invited our neighbor to watch the Super Bowl with us last night and to consume the sheet pan nachos I made: tortilla chips, seasoned ground beef with onions, pinto beans, and cheese baked then topped with minced red onion, pickled jalapeno slices, diced...
We all waste something, but was this a waste of time?
It might have seemed like a waste for me to be sitting at the sales table during our local community’s First-Saturday-of-the-month Winter Market on Saturday morning. After all, it only takes one to make a sale, and The Starflower is Keith's book, not mine. I could...
Grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home
How far we have come from Friday ten days ago with snow on the deck and our inside happy hour to this past week’s outside at the Bistro table. A fifty-degree Fahrenheit shift, now back to more seasonal temperatures. All grace, and tis grace that takes us far. Far...
The both-and of what we say, mean, need or want to say
“…many times you’ve heard someone say, particularly after a disappointment or a sudden tragedy or in the middle of a midlife crisis, ‘That’s not what was supposed to happen.’” Jennifer L. Holberg, Nourishing Narratives: The Power of Story to Shape Our Faith It...
Changing our narrative pattern to embrace scenes of miracles
As is his pattern, Mac woke me at 5 this morning with his cold muzzle and high-pitched whine. Okay, okay, I muttered, easing out of bed so as not to wake Keith. Mac whacked his tail against the bed-frame and bureau. In the great room, Cato rose from his nest bed,...
In dreams, I keep looking back to places where I no long belong
Looking back to Christmas 1995 For the past several months, I’ve been looking back, dreaming at night about houses where I lived and schools where I worked—mostly, the house where we lived while my children were growing up and the school where I taught for...