Via Beatta--the Blessed Way

I truly love the deck at the back of my condo! It is nothing fancy or special—just the usual wooden structure affixed to the rear wall of a vintage city condo that connects with the six flat building’s back stairs. And since I am on the top floor, mine lacks a “ceiling” that the others have. It is on the west side, so there is blistering sunlight from about noon on. I make do with a very cute, very French looking blue and white striped patio umbrella. Now all that sounds reasonably nice. What is challenging is that it is on the alley. My view is of parking lots for the other buildings on the block and rows of dumpsters and garbage cans for both trash and recycling. As well as the growl and grinding of a parade of garbage trucks. In Chicago, where I live, the City sanitation department takes care of single family dwellings and building with five or fewer units. So, all with six or more contract with a scavenging company of which there must be five or six that serve our block of a dozen ...

  God’s Dream—7/4/21 We need to be reminded that God has a dream for us in which all His children and indeed the whole of His creation will live in the harmonious interdependence which was God's intention from the beginning. --Archbishop Desmond Tutu This concept of God's dream for the world has long rung in my heart. As far as I know, I first heard of it in relation to Bp. Tutu, though not precisely in his words above but probably quoted by others in sermons and prayers. It seems a dream that is not about a "pie in the sky when you die" paradise to be had in the distant future if we have lived a good life here. Rather, it is about the world as it could be--as it should be--right here and now. if only we could align ourselves with what God intended at the creation. I am acutely aware these days of the vast gulf between this world and God's dream. It has become more  evident over the past year or so--not just with the realities of the pandemic, but with the voices ...

  In observance of what would have been my father's 99th birthday, I had the oil changed in my car. It was not really intentional--I had tried to make an appointment for Wednesday or Thursday, but that was not possible. It is fit and proper, though, that I did it on July 23. My dad was not always a man of many words in expressing his fatherly feelings about us. But the words were demonstrated in other ways--in making sure we were safe and provided for and asking such questions as: "Have you been checking your oil?" "When did you last get an oil change?" He knew that as young adults such things would not be foremost in our minds. And, I expect, he was protecting himself from being called out late at night to rescue us from some car misadventure. (That happened often enough, I'm afraid, even with fresh, topped up oil.) He was almost obsessive about his own cars. They were always spanking clean and polished--and then put in the garage to keep ...

Did you ever notice how there is almost never a time without trash? On Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning the cat box is cleaned, the wastebasket contents gathered and all is deposited in the trash can, dragged to the alley well before the rumble of the city trucks in the next blocks signals the weekly pick-up. Oh, and this is recycling week, too, so the paper--newspapers and junk mail, drafts of reports and sermons--along with rinsed plastic containers and cereal boxes are in the bin. For one brief moment, a sigh of satisfaction. The mess is gone. I walk through the living room on my way to dress for the day. Oh, no! There's the pile of discarded mail from yesterday next to my chair. And that pint of fuzzy berries still in the fridge. And, what's that? Feathers on the dining room rug? Naughty cat! I suppose trash and litter is not a very attractive metaphor for life and work. It is apt, though, in describing what seem to be obstacles to the "real" wor...

This is triggered by reading a Nadia Bolz Weber sermon about the Woman at the Well. She reflects that the woman may have gone to the well at noon instead of the usual women's hours in order to avoid the shunning and judgment she had experienced. Nadia, in her time, took her children to playgrounds at odd hours because she didn't feel a fit with the other moms.       I immediately time-traveled back to my first--and last--invitation to a gathering of stay-at-home moms in my new upscale, suburban neighborhood. It was a tea that turned out to be a fundraiser for the hostess's sorority. I arrived at the appointed time--a bit before the full group assembled with little ones in tow.       It was probably just polite getting-to-know-you talk. Having recently moved from another suburb, I had not yet met my neighbors. Yet, I quickly felt the questions as more like an interrogation. I responded, telling about my part-time job in a medical labora...

I 'm not sure why trains bring back Christmas memories for me, but they do. Maybe it came from ads or Marshall Field's window displays. Certainly not from the symbols of Advent or the Nativity!      In the house where we lived when both of my sons were still at home, as soon as the tree was in place and the lights strung on its branches along with the cranberry ropes (wooden ones from Crate &  Barrel, not hand-strung fresh berries), the train tracks would be put together and  arranged in an oval around the tree. It was not a fancy train with lots of accessories, just a simple Lionel with a few cars and caboose--and, of course, a whistle. It was always a lot of trouble, really, because sitting on carpet, the connections between tracks inevitably became loose or a car jumped the tracks rather than doing what it was supposed to do. Nevertheless, the tree was a necessary part of our holiday decorating.      The house was ...