a prophetic voice-

Well, my fellow Americans, say what you will but the Royal Wedding could not have happened in the U.S.A.- not just because we don't have actual royalty (though some of our celebrities seem to think of themselves that way!) but because we seem to have forgotten the civility and good manners which mark the behavior of our sisters and brothers across the pond...seem to have left good manners behind in our haste to rush into the future and leave the past behind. Notably, the new princess, Kate, chose a gown marked by beauty and elegance, simple and yet au courant in its style. Future brides, please take note! And the tenderness between the young couple was truly touchng, without being maudlin or over the top. Then there were the crowds...millions of people behaving well ... no pushing or shoving but standing respectfully even as they cheered and waved their Union Jacks...being permitted to get near to both Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace without incident. And even the we...

Yesterday- Easter Sunday- I awoke to the sounds of "The Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's "Messiah" coming from my clock radio. Our local NPR station was airing the complete Messiah and I had the good fortune to waken to this sublime music...waken to sunshine...to blooming azaleas...to a glorious day! Could Easter morning have been any more perfect? Worship at our dear little church outside Lexington, NC, included a procession to the graveyard next to the church, where we sang and prayed together before returning to the sanctuary for the rest of the service. And though I personally have no one in that lovely old resting place, I could see on the faces of many present that they were remembering those loved and lost...for this time, at least. And then, in the middle of the night- quite literally, the middle!- I received a phone call from my Rwandan "grandson", Emmanuel, the incredibly bright young boy I am trying to help with school fees so he can rem...

A beautiful good morning, dear ones, far and near. Another day of our Holy Week journey...another day of our life's holy journey... another day of asking and wondering and seeking answers for the questions of life. Another day of trying to define "faith", since this is what keeps so many of us on the path. Is "faith", perhaps, the effort to believe in light when we're covered by clouds and cannot see the sun? Of course, the sun is there ...we know that with the head, the intellect..but the heart questions, doubts...and so the skepticism born of our emotional blindness renders us unable to see truth, experience reality...the reality that the clouds will come, time and again, and that rainy days can be the most blessed of times, bringing green and glorious life, punctuated by living color. May the day ahead be filled with the awareness of light, of sunshine, even if gray clouds fill your vision. This, too, shall pass...as surely as day follows night...as su...

Good morning, dear ones. The sun is shining brightly on this Holy Monday, even as so many here in Carolina are digging out from the worst spate of deadly tornados this state has seen since 1984. Over 20 dead...and property destroyed in scenes which resemble a war zone or the pictures we have been seeing of the earthquake's devastation in Japan. More than 60 tornados were reported across our state on Saturday, hopscotching in a haphazard fashion across the capitol city, Raleigh, and many rural hamlets, destroying a Lowe's Home Improvement store in Sanford and then moving willy-nilly through residential neighborhoods, flattening one house while leaving its neighbor untouched. Official tallies include more than 130 serious injuries, 65 homes destroyed, and another 600 damaged significantly, while many major roadways remain blocked by downed trees. And those of us in the Christian community are venturing into the week we call "Holy" because it is the time we commemora...

T he sun is shining brightly today here in Carolina, which is lovely... yesterday there was more rain and today, there is lots of wind...and my taupe Civic is yellow ...and I'm sneezing a lot, with a perpetually runny nose...POLLEN!!! Can't tell you how incrediby beautiful the dogwoods are this year...everywhere i look i see bloomng clouds of white with an occasional touch of pink. And more azaleas are bursting forth every day. It's odd...each season i think the world around me couldn't be more beautiful...and then the seasons change and i am swept off my feet by the present one. This year, spring is especially lovely, methinks, and i am loving it! i saw some irises yesterday...can the peonies be far behind? Sadly, my lovely little violets are almost gone, but they lasted a long time and created a beautiful carpet in my back and side yard.   Cleaned my room first thing this morning...it was unbelievably dusty, with bunnies hiding everywhere! Now it's clean and l...

weeping... Tears water the page before me as recent rains have watered the greening lawn My heart is heavy with a sadness I cannot explain, put into words Regret? The sense of wasted time and opportunity? The wish tor something different? something more? The longing for companionship? The passing of the years? I do not know... I only know that I hurt today, feel empty, unfulfilled... and the tears keep falling. Sometimes, like this morning, i am overcome by a sense of deep, unrelenting sadness coming from the very core of my being. Has that ever happened to you? Of course, it doesn't help that the sky is heavy and overcast, since my emotions tend to be greatly influenced by the weather. But more is going on here, i think, than can be laid at the feet of meteorological events. I am carrying a burden of heaviness which i am finding it impossible to put down: the on-going concern about my youngest son, Paul's depression...

It was a misty, moisty Saturday morning, far colder than the previous several days, as hundreds of people of every size, shape, and age gathered at Center City Park for the Greensboro Walk to Defeat ALS. Under tents scattered throughout the park, team members were registering and donning their respective team T-shirts, while shivering figures lined up at the popular beverage table for steaming cups of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, using the hot cups as hand warmers for unexpectedly-icy fingers. Our team, Karen's Courage, had come together to walk in honor of our friend, Karen Kelly, who, at the age of 40, was diagnosed with ALS last summer. It has been a difficult and challenging year for Karen, husband Shane, and 9-year-old daughter, Sophie, but all three were there to welcome those of us who were ready to make the 2-mile walk. Some info: often referred to as Lou Gehrig's Disease, ALS or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a progressive, fatal neuromuscular disea...

No power! How ironic, after having spent a week with the man born blind in John's gospel, with the Pharisees wandering around in the "dark", that I should be in the dark myself, quite literally. And with the darkness is the silence...the house is completely, totally silent with the only sounds i hear the wind and rain outside, the gusts sometimes threatening to shake the very foundations of my old house...the branches of my precious Japanese maple tossing in a frenzied dance, while bird feeders sway wildly- and the birds are nowhere to be seen. It is only at times like this that i realize how noisy life has become, how- even in what usually passes for silence- the background noise persists...the hum of the refrigerator, the whisper of heat or air conditioning through the ducts, the various motors of appliances humming and thrumming along, polluting our silence with the taken-for-granted sound track of living. So here i sit, on this blustery, rainy day, the only light ...