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Showing posts from October, 2006

Fat women shouldn't wear orange!

Well, there goes another precept of my mom's about proper dress for all body types. Last night I wore flip-flops, which, I guess, is another transgression, especially in October, as were white shoes before Memorial Day. Sorry, mom. On this last day of October, I felt very Halloweeny, therefore the bright orange long-sleeved tee-shirt. I'm sure I look like a barrage balloon which has broken loose. Who cares? I am fortunate to have one of those jobs where you make decent money and they don't care how you dress, a situation I take increasing advantage of as I continue to slough off the fashion lessons of my youth. Actually I feel very close to my mom today, though she's been gone for nearly 11 years. Tomorrow both parents' names will be read aloud at our church's All Saints' Day service, and I will sniffle as I always do. Some things never go completely away.

On spiritual warfare

I have just about finished a very challenging book recommended to me by someone at church: Holy Vulnerability , by Mike Flynn, an Episcopal priest. What an eye-opener! Fr. Flynn is part of the charismatic renewal movement within the Episcopal Church, and this book reflects that perspective. But what a different perspective from my own! The matter arose at the Church on the Pike when a friend asked me to pray that our church's own renewal might be successful and not fall prey to the "Evil One." I guess I got a funny look on my face when she said this to me, because I was immediately handed Fr. Flynn's book. Now, despite having seen The Exorcist 4 or 5 times when it first came out, and having read with great interest Malachi Martin's book Hostage to the Devil , I'm just not sure what I think about the objective reality of demons in this world, where so many problems can be attributed to man himself. But maybe not all problems. I have a good deal of thinking abo

A change in the weather

The mercury fell into the high 30s last night, so I guess I can say fall has arrived. Meanwhile, they have two feet of snow in Buffalo -- I'm happy not to be dealing with that yet! My son had left for work and everyone else was still asleep when I left this morning. It was a perfect fall morning: the air was so cold I could see my breath, but there was no wind, so a little mist still hung in the trees, which have just started to turn to their fall colors. I stood still for a minute, just saying a prayer of thanks. If I'd had time, I would love to have made a cup of tea and sat on my front porch, all bundled up. The air was so clear it was like looking through crystal. I hate having to leave the house in the mornings. I am definitely, at least in middle age, quite the homebody. Tonight, if it stays chilly, I will definitely have a fire, and stay up late, reading. For some unknown reason, I have decided to try to learn a little biblical Greek (!), and got myself a textbook with a

Grieving for the Amish

Like everyone else, I am horrified by school violence, a problem I never had to worry about when I was in school myself. My kids were in high school when the Columbine shootings took place, and I remember well the paradigm shift I underwent as I had to acknowledge that my kids might not be safe after I dropped them off in the morning, and that I had no control over what might happen at the school, beyond my sight and hearing. Before Columbine, school violence certainly existed -- but it was the simple scale of the Columbine violence that reordered everyone's thinking. What darkness might be lurking in the hearts and minds of my kids' classmates? What violent plans might be hatching in fecund teenaged brains? And now it's a whole new ballgame, another paradigm shift, as I read somewhere the other day. Now we have to fear not only alienated, hate-filled teenagers, but alienated, hate-filled adults who have discovered in nearby schools an easy target for their rage. Adults w