Hearing into Being — Words … they spill out in a maelstrom when my friends are upset and trying to make sense of troubling situations. Or else they can barely speak at all. At the very time I want to be helpful, I am confronted with the intensity — verbal and emotional. Like many…

“And as imagination bodies forth the form of… —

“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.” — from William Golding’s Lord of the Flies — It’s hard to be an optimist in any age, but it seems more challenging these days. I’ll spare you the litany of woes pressing upon us. You know them well if you treasure the natural world, compassionate human relationships and social justice. With hardships affecting not just individuals but whole…

Welcome to the Retirement Labyrinth — Oh, for the good ol’ days. My grandmother lived in a house down the hill from my aunt and every morning she raised her blind and every evening she turned off the light in her living room. “Those were our signals,” my aunt told me. …

What’s in Your Heavens? —

I awakened to my sexual vulnerability as a woman — I awoke abruptly in the middle of the night. Something was poking my upper leg. Foggy from sleep, I tried to figure out what was happening. It was hot — one of those muggy nights in Southern Illinois in the late 1960s in a house without air conditioning. Who had…

I have watched you dancing with these trees Their fall leaves swaying back and forth. The breezes twirl them east, then west. You are in…

How the Strength of their Convictions Can blind Well-Meaning People — Sarah smells the richly spiced aroma of marinara sauce wafting from Zeno’s Italian kitchen. Her appetite disappears when she sees her friend Lila’s pale face and wobbly body walking toward her. Rushing to steady her, she asks, “Lila, what’s wrong?” “I got dizzy driving here. Yes, something’s wrong.” Sarah knows…

It helps explain the deep satisfaction we get from meaningful dialogues — Ahh … the term intertwined (verb: to link or twist together). One can draw from weaving for examples of overlapping threads, one on top of — or next to — the other. As a metaphor for ideas in dialogue, intertwined is evocative, as one thread alone never creates shared meanings…