Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

And so summer has begun. Last evening, I sat on my porch, enjoying the long Summer Solstice evening. We had lots of rain over the weekend, but a fresh breeze had blown most of the clouds out to sea, and the sky gradually cleared. The evening light became blue and luminous, and all the songbirds perked up again after the rain and began to fill the air with song. There's one bird, whose song I can't identify, who sings most loudly and beautifully just as dusk falls. It's his last song of the day, and I suppose he wants to finish with a flourish. I sat on and on, till it was almost fully dark, at about 9:30 at our latitude. It's funny how one's vision changes as the light decreases: as the sky fades, the dark forms of the trees across the road become abstract, black shapes, and the distance seems foreshortened, as if they are perching on the edge of my lawn. Perspective is lost. It's the seasonal tipping point, of course, which is why I treasure this evenin...

It's the season of celebrations and milestones. In May, our daughter graduated from Rutgers School of Dental Medicine. The same month, two friends were ordained to the Diaconate in the Episcopal Church, in a beautiful service that had most of the congregation in tears of joy. Now many of my New Seminary friends are reverends, too! Last Friday I was privileged to attend the ordination of The New Seminary's class of 2015. The service took place in the chapel at Barrytown College, where the entire student body had gathered. After degrees (D.Min. and M.Th.) and prizes were awarded, all those folks to the left were ordained by the Interfaith Temple, and are now interfaith ministers. I sniffled the entire time. It was very moving -- and I am not much of a crier, as my husband will attest. A whole new crop of interfaith ministers has been "turned loose" on the world, which will be a better place because of them. Their ordination required no oath of conformation to ...

At left is a robin sitting on the nest which she happens to have built in a shrub near my porch. The back portion of the shrub has died from winterkill; I was annoyed until I realized the nest was right there, and I could look in from my porch chair and see it. Mama robin was skittish at first, leaving the nest at any sign of movement on the porch, and scolding me loudly from the middle of the front walk. Eventually, we both adjusted: she grew more tolerant of local humans, and I learned to move slowly and to speak soothingly to her. Last night, when I arrived home from work, Mama was missing -- and I panicked, because I had seen an opossum crossing the lawn the night before. But peeking into the nest, I saw three tiny beaks upraised, waiting for dinner! Three downy babies had hatched! So I retreated to my chair, and throughout the evening had the pleasure of watching Mama, Papa, or both, feeding their new babies. Worms seemed plentiful, because fortunately we had just had rain...

I have to sleep with the window open. It's not negotiable, even in the bleak midwinter when it's 10 above zero -- my window WILL be open, if only a finger's-width. In the summer, I love to hear the night-sounds: crickets, dogs barking now and then, and the occasional falling trill of a screech-owl. This is my bedtime music. Usually a good sleeper, I've been sleeping very lightly of late. To make up for that, I've been trying to actually go to bed earlier -- 10:30 or 11:00 means early to me, since I'm a real night-owl. My ideal schedule would be bed at 2:00, up at 9:00. My sleep troubles may have something to do with the early light, as the days grow longer approaching the Summer Solstice. This morning I woke up at 4:30. The square window opening was growing brighter by the minute. I groaned under my breath (so as not to wake J.), rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep. It was not to be. The minute I had settled down again, a bird began to sing. It wa...

I have always wanted to play an instrument. My mother played piano beautifully, but gave it up when she married -- in fact, we never had a piano when I was a child. I think Mom felt this loss keenly, though she would never have said so. When J. and I bought a piano for the kids to play, Mom showed a rush of enthusiasm she hadn't felt in a long time, and bought herself a couple books of piano music. Sadly, she died not long after, without much of a chance to reclaim her musical roots. When I was in my early forties, my kids took piano lessons, and so did I (briefly). Not only did I lack time to practice, but was totally unprepared for reading bass clef (as a chorister, I read treble clef pretty well, but bass clef might as well be written in Greek). I labored away at it, but never got much beyond "Abide with Me" in my easy book of hymns. That two-hands-playing-different-lines-thing? Not happening. The kids blew right past me, of course. My daughter still plays when she...

My title today is the first line from a poem by Robert Frost, and refers to the green-gold color of newly-emerged leaves in the spring. Spring has finally come to the mid-Atlantic, though it's cooler today than normal. Last weekend the trees really began coming into leaf. I love this time of year because, even on warm days, we don't feel the oppressive, stifling humidity that we will endure in July and August. We've had plenty of rain, too, which has helped to "green things up," in a phrase my mother used to use. And shade is back, at least in its infancy. Driving along in my town, I could see the faintest shade cast by all the new leaves. The shade is just a faint tracery on lawns as yet, not the full, deep shade of summer, but a delicate webbing, which trembles in the breeze. Hotter days are coming, of course, when I'll pine for cooler afternoons and crisp evenings. But for now, hello to spring! It was late in arriving, and it will yield to summer in...

I'm having a little bit of trouble with "Love thy neighbor" these days. My neighbor, whom I'll call Annie, is only a year older than I am, but is a recluse. No, seriously. I have not laid eyes on her in two years, and I didn't see her frequently before that. We have long suspected that Annie suffers from mental illness, some kind of paranoid condition, perhaps, because on her front door are many post-it notes forbidding anyone from knocking for any reason. She is long divorced, chronically short of money, and her house is falling down on her head -- there's a tarp over part of the roof, and the paint on the rest of the house has nearly all chipped away. The neighborhood regards it as an eyesore, and a neighbor who was once inside (many years ago) told me that Annie is a hoarder, and that the house is so full that she is forced to live in only one room. Following a back injury two years ago, Annie can no longer drive, and so the car sitting in her drivewa...