Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

  My Family Home I was in my hometown last Tuesday for a business meeting. And I couldn't help it -- I had to check up on my family's former home, the house where I grew up -- which had seemed abandoned the last time I saw it. To my great relief, it's been cleaned up and is on the market! This is the photo from the MLS listing. The house sits in the shade of an enormous maple tree, almost the only large tree left on the property.  When I was small, however, this scant quarter-acre was my Eden. Back in the day, when my grandparents lived with us, their green thumb and love for trees were in evidence.  On the front lawn you'd have found, in addition to the maple, a blue spruce, a magnolia tree, azaleas, and boxwoods.  In the back yard were a tall birch, a peachtree, a Japanese maple, lilac and hydrangea bushes, a vegetable garden, a rose bed, and yet another maple tree. There was also a slender mimosa tree, planted by my father on the day I was born. I can still fee

I'd like to personally thank our friends north of the border for the beautiful cold front taking over our weather today. The air is crisp and clean, autumnal, the very first hint we have had of approaching fall. My window was open all night. What a blessing the turn of the year is -- the revolving of the seasons speaks directly to my spirit. "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!"

On a recent Saturday evening, about twilight, I was cleaning up in the kitchen and found myself staring out the kitchen window. The sky was overcast, and the rampant vegetation in the yard lent a peaceful, greenish cast to the light. Birds flocked to the newly-filled feeders. There were the pileated woodpecker, the catbird, the usual flock of sparrows (those good little laborers in the vineyard!), and the goldfinches that I have come to think of as "mine," since I finally figured out how to attract them. Funny, isn't it, how we come to think of things as "ours." I recall my mother and grandmother, in the house where I grew up, standing in the kitchen, aprons on and sudsy water to their elbows, and looking out the kitchen window into the yard that was "theirs." It was a different scene, of course, in addition to being a different window: my grandmother was a great gardener, so in those days they looked out on hydrangea, lilacs, beds of

Life can be so silly sometimes. In my latest episode of silliness, I was quietly making hamburger patties in my kitchen, accompanied by my oldest dog, Shadow, who is nearly blind and almost completely deaf. When the burgers were finished, I stowed them in the freezer, picked up the container of bread crumbs, and reached down to stroke my faithful, furry friend, prior to washing up. She can still smell just fine, it seems. Smelling meat, she clamped down on my fingers good and hard. This is a girl who loves her food. She wasn't missing out on this! I yelled in pain. Shadow jumped, knocking the bread crumbs out of my other hand. We had an eruption of bread crumbs several feet into the air. I said a few things that would, as Anne Lamott puts it, "make Jesus want to drink gin from the cat dish." Fortunately, the skin was not broken. But I wondered if the last joint in my finger might be broken, when it swelled up and got very red. What do you do for that? Go to the ER? I coul

Oh, OK, you're right ... It's been awhile. I, like many people, got through Christmas and collapsed. Why do I do this to myself every year? I don't even have little kids to use as an excuse. Next year, all I want is a candle in the window and a wreath on the door. Hear that, J.? Adjust! On the other hand, I wouldn't mind having an itty bitty tree (say three feet tall), with all my glass ornaments (icicles, raindrops, snowflakes, etc. on it). And white lights, of course. See, I'm already caving in! At the moment, however, I am stewing over the fireplace. There was an article in our newspaper recently about how terribly polluting wood-smoke is, so I have been feeling guilty every time I light a fire. Particulates! Yuck. So I have a decision to make, now that the firewood is nearly gone and spring will be here soon (I hope). Do I purchase a cleaner-burning fireplace insert that still burns wood? A pellet stove? (somehow that makes me sound like a guinea pig) Or some