He said, “I probably didn’t model the best cop-
ing skills and, in all honesty, where were you
with that? How did we have the gall to birth
two kids when we were and always remained so
childish with each other which then, of course,
the kids would take in in the technicolor, wide-
screen theatre called home? Seriously, is it
any wonder that one of them eventually said, ‘We
really look good to the outside world,’ and the
other one just stared? If looks could kill. We
should have had this conversation years and years
ago, but, then again, I think we started it a
gazillion times only to wind up in an argument,
loud shouts and kids ducking under chairs. And
now you’re gone and I’m here mumbling ‘Too soon
old, too late smart,’ and if you were here, I
don’t know that the end of the effort would be
any different than it ever was and I still can’t
stop telling you how much I love you.”

The pond fish play water polo
with a fallen Rose of Sharon flower.
They push and pull,
nibble and bite as the folded,
pink flower moves closer
and closer to the skimmer.
Who will be the winner?
In it goes.
Which team won?
Nobody knows. No fin raised in victory;
no high fives;
the pond fish go on with their pond fish lives.
Wait. They all take a victory lap
around the pond.
No competition. It’s D’Artagnan and
Musketeers all — all for one and
one for all
when the pond fish play ball.

The writer wrote, “ineluctable
as the tide,” and the man re-
membered when he and his wife
paddled their kayaks along the
water and under the bridge divid-
ing the ocean from the bay and
found the paddling instantly
easier. They paddled and paddled
with great pleasure and then the
midwesterners remembered the
tide and the current. Spinning
their kayaks around they paddled
and paddled but kept going back-
ward like a Buster Keaton silent
movie in reverse or a Michael
Jackson backward foot shuffle,
out and out into the ocean.
They strained and huffed and
puffed and seeing the bridge
thought they would blow the
bridge down and finally made it
back under that bridge floating
exhausted in the bay. The writer
wrote that grief was “ineluctable
as the tide.” That day they beat
grief and high-fived a great, if
terrifying ride, but they would
never again forget the ineluctable
tide.

In the morning, he sits on the balcony
overlooking the pond and waterfall.
He breathes deeply — in 1,2,3,4
hold and count fast 1,2,3,4 — out
1,2,3,4 and on and on. The oxygen
goes in and the CO2 comes out.
Meanwhile, over the railing and
around the pond, the birch, arbor-
vitae, hemlocks, Norway spruces,
white pines, red pines, chokecherries
maples breathe in CO2 and breathe
out oxygen. The melody, the harmony,
the rhythm, the beat. What a great
way to make beautiful music. And
the backyard choir sings silently.

I am standing on a wooden
walkway just above the beach
with its hot, white sand and

I’m looking out at all the blind-
ing white and directly in front
of me is a young, attractive

blond woman wearing a white,
silky, chiffon-like shoulder wrap
blowing in the wind over a white

bathing suit and in the next
minute I am standing next to
the young woman and I am stab-

bing her over and over and the
only color on the beach other
than all the white is the red

from the blood — gushing and
splashing and spilling down the
woman’s body into the hot, white

sand. I have this dream over and
over and over I tell the therapist
to whom I have been going since

my blond wife died in a day from
blood rushing through her brain.
He pauses and then says, “Why

do you keep stabbing yourself?”
Since that day, I have never
again had that dream.

He wrote the note
because he knew
a fellow traveler would know
what he had been through.

He wanted to compare notes
with someone who knew,
someone in the proverbial “know,”
what the two had been through.

He wrote the note, and so
away it flew,
landing with the sure feet of a crow.
Indeed, that someone knew.

And in the note,
vulnerability, like birdseed, he did strew.
The fellow traveler did understand and know
stuff just comes along for the ride, too.

It’s called a confidence vote note,
trusting one with news that’s shared with few.
The fellow traveler indeed did know —
often, stuff comes along for the ride; it’s true.

He stands before the mirror,
full-frontal. He moves to the
side. Half his image is gone.
He says, “My image is half
gone. I’m half gone.” He
returns to where he was —
full frontal. He is there, fully.
He breathes a sigh of relief.
Love whispers in the man’s
ear, “Did you see me? I’m
here. I moved aside with
you and moved back. I’m
here with you — full-frontal.

*idea and image from commentary on
Meister Eckhart by James Finley at Richard
Rohr’s Daily Meditation

A theologian/novelist wrote, “It is possible to look at most miracles and find a rational explanation in terms of natural cause and effect.

It is possible to look at Rembrandt’s Supper at Emmaus and find a rational explanation in terms of paint and canvas.”

Let’s gather in thirty minutes by the lion on the north side of the steps for a group photo before heading to lunch. Wasn’t that Rembrandt exhibit just amazing?

*quote by Frederick Buechner

This shallow, superficial culture,
an inch thick, fed by a theology
also an inch thick, stroked by
absorption with “What are the
stars doing?” — this post-WWII
culture was ready-made for a
takeover by what Eisenhower
warned—a military/industrial
complex, which would guarantee
the fewest get the most and the
most is protected with violence
in fatigues, no names and the
ominous designation in capital
letters P-O-L-I-C-E while the
one percent feign happiness
and pretty, young, white wives
married to old, dementia prone
white billionaires (who own the
entertainment industry) lock
them in beautiful, gold-leafed
bedrooms while they have affairs
with younger white men who
simply and sincerely want to
entertain those lonely white wives
with the purest of motives fueled
by selfless altruism and sincere
patriotism and Second Amend-
ment rights in a culture one-inch-
thick fed by a theology one-inch-
thick where a president holds up
an upside-down Bible while the
P-O-L-I-C-E beat back M-O-M-S.

The heaviness hung even 
     on a light, bright day —
          a walk, a dog, a blanket,
a lake, joggers, cyclists, 
     fishers, three times around 
          the lake, a book to read 
and an unintended nap to refresh,
     relax, regroup. Through the 
          olive tree a hole -- light 
deflecting into rays of a cross 
     and dozens upon dozens of 
          dragonflies, glittering, silver
dragonflies flying around 
     the olive branches, peace, 
          lightness, spiritually lifting the 
heaviness, taking the heaviness up and away 
     and hummingbirds dancing with 
          the dragonflies and circling
the rays of light of the cross. 
     Lakotas say that hummingbirds
          come to tell us we need the 
purr, the whirr, the gift of 
     "the eternal lightness of being."

*idea from a meditation by
James Pennington