“Another year over and a new one just begun”…every time I hear these lines from John Lennon’s song “And So This Is Christmas,” I’m carried into the melody and the haunting question which is also part of the song, “and what have you done?” The inevitable Q and A the lines require has me pondering the reason for such introspection. Then there are the admonitions of all resolution pundits: Take stock. Plan ahead. Make a stand. Fight the good fight. All the platitudes and mott

It has been a challenging year in every way: politically, economically, creatively, and personally. No matter the challenges, time does slip by. Here we are at the tail end of 2024, contemplating what was and what is yet to be. If Lady Justice were truly blind, the scales would not have tipped so far toward the unacceptable. But my view is not shared by so many others. How then do I square what is right and true with has happened? I cannot. All I can do is persist in the beli

When November winds come calling and the prairie turns golden in the early dawn, my mind revisits the poetry and songs that address the month and its impact on humans. Inevitably I recall Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” the evocative tale of the loss of a boat on Lake Superior. Once the words get stuck in my head, they tumble over each other, the music and lyrics chilling. Hard to explain why, for me, a single song can so quickly invoke the force and

September never arrives without the image of Bilbo Baggins starting out on a journey of adventure and discovery…a tale that makes my feet itch to walk the trails, hike through the forest, climb mountains, to seek out the wild and wonderful that surrounds us. OR I can simply settle back and re-read The Hobbit. Books do that for us, create mind pictures of people, places, and wonders, real or imagined, that speak to us long after we have finished the read. Great books draw us b

Rejection is part of the process of writing, but it’s never easy. Experienced authors claim you get used to it, accept it as a normal step in growing your writing career. There are times, however, when all those No’s grow from molehills into mountains, when you think you can’t make one more pass at that brass ring. That’s what this summer of 2024 resembles in my own work. Full disclosure, I’ve concentrated more on producing new writing than on sending out work, so the handful

This summer has been a hot one, challenging to work in the garden, sit on the porch, or exercise outdoors. Instead of a long end-of-summer piece, I thought I’d share a few learnings I’ve taken from my summer travels and reading; Adrian Dominican Sisters motto: Seek truth. Make Peace. Reverence life. Words and works to live by. Marcus Borg: The principal suffering of the poor is shame and disgrace. We should work to erase shame and replace it with hope. Gregory Boyle, S.J.: Ma

This is the summer of growing my own produce. And I, in humility, have embraced my role as a random gardener. That is not to say that I didn’t begin with a plan. After all, I scribble lists for everything from plot lines to characters, groceries to poems. But this year, I believed I had drawn up the perfect plan for the garden beds. With the help of my daughter and her incredibly strong husband, we emptied the compost bin of years of accummulated new soil into the existing di

This month, this sunny, shiny, green month of hope and optimism…June always makes me remember all the weddings I’ve attended in this lovely time of year, especially that of my sister, now gone but never forgotten. How young we were, how optimistic, how unfettered by political machinations and AI threats, and age. June also brings a relatively new celebration…PRIDE parades and recognition that not all of us are easily labeled, that some are naturally, organically inclined to d