Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

Happy Double-Digit February, everyone! I am always a bit happier when the tenth of February arrives. Most years, the weather has begun to moderate somewhat; we have often had our last snow; and if you look closely ( very closely, with a lot of hope!), you can see the very tips of crocuses peeking from the earth. This morning, the birds were having a convention in my yard -- at first light, when they woke me up! Thanks, birdies ( grumble, grumble). At the Church on the Hill, we are beginning to gear up for Lent. The Julian Gathering's first official meeting will be on the 19 th of this month, and the chapel we are constructing from an old Sunday School room now has a new rug (rolled up and waiting for paint to be selected). At home, our sometimes -wayward son is back in college and doing well (at least, today!). Our daughter has had several dental-school interviews, and is hoping for a few more. It seems like it will be an exciting spring, once it arrives. How about you? What are

I'm just your basic wannabe mystic, I'll admit. But I've slowly been reading my way back though the works of Annie Dillard, whose writing I first encountered while teaching Freshman English. Now, Annie seems like a true mystic to me, and I never get tired of her muscular prose and her visionary approach to the world. My favorite of her books, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, has a fascinating chapter entitled, "Seeing." At the end of this chapter she describes an experience of seeing the "tree with the lights in it": I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I'm still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors

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