Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

Winter has settled in here in the mid-Atlantic -- with a cold thump. I just learned that the low in North Dakota was -44 degrees this morning! So I guess we can't complain about our projected low of +9 tomorrow morning. The dogs don't care much for the cold, however. When I put them out in the yard, they stand and look at each other, as if puzzled. What is she thinking, putting us out in weather like this? She wants us to do what ? Now if we could just get some snow. About two feet would be fine -- enough to shut down my place of employment for a day or two. I love being snowed in! Snow, please!

Notice that I'm not using the word resolutions ... this is more like a plan. Plans suggest flexibility, fluidity, adjustment. Resolutions suggest, well ... resoluteness . None of that here! But I am hopeful, even if not resolute! So here we go! Listen more; talk less. Pray more; talk less. Stop whining when you do talk. Lose the remaining weight. 23 pounds is good, but it's not enough to be healthy. So keep dieting. Stop at 115. Then have a hoagie . When you get to 115, go on a cruise with J. Don't worry that there is no money for a cruise (or for anything else). Save the chardonnay for Friday and Saturday. Your waistline will thank you. Your liver will be ecstatic. Do NOT check on your 403b(7) retirement account several times a day. Check it only on Friday night. Wash down with abovementioned wine if needed. Spend more time with friends. What're you saving vacation days for? You have no money to travel with! Carry a dollar in your jeans pocket when you go to work

I read somewhere recently that some people are "Christmas" Christians, while others are "Passion" Christians. I must fall into the latter category -- I find Lent more meaningful than Advent, and I am completely absorbed by the time the Triduum arrives. That's the most important time of the year for me. By the time Thanksgiving is over, I am ready for a break. But here comes Advent! There's no place to hide! Overnight: total-immersion Advent! At the mall, yesterday, when I finally began the little bit of Christmas shopping that I am going to do, I kept hearing that Christmas song on the loudspeakers, the one that insists that Christmas is the happiest time of the year. So I must be missing something. Christmas wears me out. A local radio station began all-Christmas-music-programming *before* Thanksgiving! It's the middle of December and I've already been caroled to death! And merchants must be truly desperate, because at least 80% of my email this mo

Pride goeth before a fall. It began with the turkey. The turkey had to be better this year! I went to the market on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and bypassed the frozen turkeys in favor of a fresh one, a nice little 13- pounder . I have trouble getting frozen turkeys defrosted in time, no matter how soon I put them in the fridge. So this year would be different. The turkey would be fresh . If I noticed the words organic and free-range , they failed to register. Until I got to the register, I mean. Imagine the deer-in-the-headlights look on my face when that turkey rang up at $41.11. I stared blankly at the bored, gum-snapping teenage cashier. How could I admit to her that I wanted to trade in my organic and free-range turkey, unpolluted by antibiotics, used to the happy, carefree life outside the coop, for a deep-frozen, overfed lump of turkey which would end up, even after days of defrosting, in my sink on Thanksgiving morning with me cursing at it? Naturally, I lacked th

Actually, that's all I'm seeing at my backyard birdfeeder. Sparrows. Back in the summer I had quite a variety of birds: cardinals, tufted titmice, chickadees, and a bird which I think was a type of woodpecker. Now? Sparrows. I know all the birds haven't flown to warmer climes. The question, then, is: where are they? I posed this question to my friend, who looked at me with pity before asking me what I was using as feed. "I don't know," I said. "Seed. I get it in bags at the grocery store." My friend winced, and gave me the address of a nearby birdseed emporium. I found my way there, and was suddenly in bird wonderland. There I found every birdfeeding and bird-watching accessory known to man. Ground feeders. Pole feeders. Squirrel baffles. Birdhouses of all sizes, even bird apartment-buildings for purple martens. High-powered optics for viewing birds. And a puzzling array of foods: nyjer seed, peanuts, corn, you name it. Plus several seed blends, in