I have a plaque on the wall in my kitchen that reads "Bloom where God plants you." This morning that struck me as not quite something that rings true for me right now. Where I am is not necessarily God's fault or God's plan. I have free will (that's what makes me a...

God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the thing I am And Wisdom to know the difference. I first learned that prayer - those words as a teenager. I've repeated them and prayed them frequently since that time. But, they meant...

My mother has remarked more than once that I always wanted to succeed at things I'm not good at and ignore the things that come naturally. Leave it to Mama to see through you... The comment has also been made that I'm a bit like Groucho Marx: "I refuse to be a member...

Compassion seems to be the recent recurring theme in my thoughts and prayers. It was in the forefront of ideas in one of my recent reads - "Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain" by Sharon Begley, which reports on a meeting of neuroscientists, buddhist scholars and the...

Last night, as I was strapping on my CPAP it felt like this was just another one of my many tethers. I've had it a month. It fits under my nose and pushes air into my lungs so that I can sleep - really sleep - through a long hose that attaches me to the machine part....

Yesterday the library had a small Juneteenth celebration. I was glad I read the entire email explaining the origins of Juneteenth, because just looking at the date, my first thought was - "Is this a summer solstice celebration?" Turns out it is a commemoration of the...

A few Sundays ago, I noticed that we had done mass in 3/4 time - every song, every proper except the Gospel Acclamation (and a few bars of the Lamb of God) were 3/4. Rather a musical pun on the entire hour - to have all of the music in waltz time. Mass is not just a...

A few days ago, a couple of lost souls in the library asked me for directions. I pointed, and talked, and watched them, so I could offer course corrections for a bit.  I think they made it to their destination, but I don't know how many more times they had to ask. As...

The past couple of weeks have been rather [emotionally] intense. There were several days where the object of my anger wore the face of a priest - the pastor at our parish. He's one of those people in my life in whom I see and sense a very deep and intense...

I'm still struggling with this one... partly because my will is probably out of line with God's will, but I know that my will is often shortsighted and limited in scope. This is a really thorny concept for me - demanding that I release more control (not that I often...