• Being Human - Blessings - Darkness - Difficulty - Family - Fear - Hope - Light - Loss - Safety

    Chaos, Kindness & The Flood of Garlic.

    October 25, 2014 - By 

    To write this, I wrote it five times — and then a sixth.  It was still a mess. I printed it out and with my green pen. I scratched out everything. Well, almost everything — so I could start again. I haven’t been able to think straight – too much on my mind.  I needed a little something. Then I woke this morning thinking of garlic. If you use a little garlic it is amazing.  It adds that special something to everything you eat.  It is almost magical the way it transforms a dish. For some, garlic is their favorite…

  • Being Human - Darkness - Family - Fear - Hope - Light - Loss

    Fishing & The Hospital Bed

    September 20, 2014 - By 

    Yesterday they brought a hospital bed into my father’s house Of course, in the past few weeks he has been declining and now he doesn’t have the strength to get up. But he did try, anyway. And of course, he fell. Dad has always been so independent…wanted to do things his way….so now he is being offered containment. With high rails on the sides, it is his worst nightmare:: a hospital bed. The guys from hospice took apart his own bed–the same one that I crawled into when I was young and had nightmares. The same bed where I slept…

  • Being Human - Darkness - Hope

    Everything is a Seed.

    August 15, 2014 - By 

    There is violence, racism and inequality in our world. It begins somewhere…with a seed of mistrust.   Who planted this seed? I did.   Because seeds begin with us and we plant them, intentionally or not. As a hopeful soul there are always seeds that I want to plant.  And those hardly ever grow.  It is hit or miss, basically. Along with all the other hopeful souls in the four-season world, the end of summer makes me excited for the bulbs which I can plant in September for the time when life returns after long winter. I gaze longingly at the…

  • Darkness - Hope - Light

    What We Can See In The Dark

    August 6, 2014 - By 

    “The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm. You have noticed that truth comes into this world with two faces – one that is sad with suffering and the other laughs. But it is the same face – laughing or weeping – as lightning illuminates the dark…” — Black Elk In the epic story of creation, it is said that on the first day the Divine separated light from dark. Such a beautiful image – but when you consider that the sun, moon and stars were not yet created until the fourth day – then which…

  • Childhood - Darkness - Fear - Light - Safety

    The Worst Thing That Could Happen

    August 4, 2014 - By 

    When I was a little girl living near Chicago, I imagined that the worst thing that could happen would be if a tornado hit my school. Several times during the school year our principal would get on the loudspeaker and announced “Operation Ajax” — which meant that we would line up at the door and proceed into the hallway where there were no windows — sitting against the walls with our heads between our knees — our arms protecting our necks against potential flying glass. As it happened, my school was never actually hit by a tornado. A few years…

  • Childhood - Darkness - Fear - Hope

    Perspective and Innocence

    August 1, 2014 - By 

      Three days ago this happened: There is a family in Tel Aviv…many families in Tel Aviv…who go to the shelters with their children when the alarms sound. This family has two little boys — ages 4 and 7. One night this week the air sirens sounded. The family hurried to the shelter. It was 2:30 am. The sleepy 7 year-old said to his mom: “ema, which army do you like better…which army do you want to win”? Well, this young mother didn’t honestly know how to answer. How does one explain to a little boy about death and war…