“Would you like to have spiritual care?” The question scared me. The nurse had been casually going through various pre-op necessities, taking my blood pressure and checking my pulse and asking if I were allergic to latex. My impending translaminar foraminectomy was classified as elective surgery. “Spiritual care” sounded like “last rites” to me. Had ...
I begged my most Christian collegiate compadre to buy me condoms. Oh, the things a fledgling proselytizer doesn’t imagine they’ll be called to do. But, after two shocked eyebrows and one sigh of resignation as I bolted out of her post-collegiate apartment door for a date — and an impending affair — that I hadn’t ...
“I think it’s like a prayer.” My then seven-year-old had answered her own question more exquisitely than I ever could have. I had managed to keep my didactic mouth shut and allow her to answer it for herself. Two quiet miracles in one quiet moment while a mother was at home with her child. She ...
“I meet the woman of my dreams and she’s a Buddhist?!?” Happy Valentine’s Day indeed. The man who spoke these words to me five years ago was actually born on February 14th. We were on our first veryofficialnicerestaurant date. We were very drawn to each other. To say that we had chemistry is serious understatement. ...
A request from the audience! To discuss meditation a bit more, particularly my comment about meditating while walking my dogs. A disclaimer! Meditation is not my forte, I am in no way a teacher of it, and let’s just say you get what you pay for here. A gift! From a dear friend this week, ...
I lay next to God all day yesterday. Her name is actually Kyrie. Which does mean God, in Greek. She is my younger daughter. So, ok, yeah, not that God. Still, she is as much a spark of the divine fire, as much an illimitable moment of immanent God, as the rest of us. She ...
“Mom, what’s your favorite poem?” Larkin asked this question dutifully, though with a slight whiff of resignation as well. My daughter’s 6th grade English teacher had assigned them the task of asking their parents this, and of bringing it in. She knew, though her teacher did not, just how much she was getting into. I ...
Usually small, often lumpy or a little misshapen, very sweet and invariably a bit uncool, and almost always soft because of its many iterations through many hands and many hearts. Think Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. Or that new little soul on the block who reallyreallyreally wants to be friends. Or, in my case, a sacred ...
I had a dream I was in bed with the Dalai Lama. Not that kind of in bed. More like a cheerful slumber party, with a feeling of being very young, lighthearted and happy and just having fun together. We were giggling and bantering, playfully pulling fistfuls of a soft orange blanket up and under ...
Two Wednesdays ago, as I was looking for an image of Mu Qi’s “Six Persimmons” to attach to that week’s essay, I began typing “the six per…” into Safari’s search bar. The first suggested connection was “the six perfections.” The universe speaks in many ways. Like an embarrassed woman bumping into someone to whom you ...