I owe my “I am-ness” to the Stranger. That existence undefined and uncontrollable. The next unpredictable. The Stranger. Those ancestors in my blood, those that are not, and those in future unknown. Next in the grocery line and yet unseen around the corner. The Stranger. Those at body birth, continuance of essence, and those at…
So many of us still remember the first moment we heard about September 11, 2001, when extremists hijacked four planes flying above the United States. Two planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Another into the Pentagon, the top military building in Washington D.C. Close to three…
Fred Rogers is often quoted as saying, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” I have never felt the truth of that statement as much as I have in the…
Three weeks ago, the greater Cedar Rapids community experienced a freak inland hurricane known as a derecho. Because of this storm, many of us experienced what it is like to live without food, shelter, gas, electricity and internet—most of us for the first time in our lives. At my house, we learned first-hand how hard…
“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” —J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King Friday night, I sat with a friend in her driveway, many feet apart from one another, as dusk gave way to night. Around us, her once beautifully wooded neighborhood looked like it had suffered…
Relating with Our Creature-Kin, Part 2 On last Sunday’s blog, we began exploring the wild world of our creature-kin. (https://prairiewoods.org/wild-thing-you-make-my-heart-sing/) We looked at our perception of other-than-human kin in their own integrity, rather than who they are solely in relationship to us humans. Now we shift our attention to our ethics, our practical ways of relating…
Compelling energy—the thousands of activists who over fifty years ago in 1963 committed themselves to nonviolence and marched courageously in Birmingham for all. Spawning several grassroots movements, Dr. Martin Luther King’s candid “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” called people to pledge not only to march for justice, but also to make active nonviolence a way…
Twelve years ago, my husband and I had a somewhat untraditional wedding. We rented a large inn for the weekend and invited our close friends and family to come celebrate and help us create the perfect weekend. One friend helped me buy all the food, and my aunt cooked it. My mom made the flower…
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” —Mark Twain Notable figures throughout human history have worked as changemakers, for good and ill. Was it easier to change the way things were 20 years ago? Unlikely. Change is, by its very nature, a stretching of the…
I recently read Glennon Doyle’s new book, Untamed. It took me a while to read because each chapter brought up spiritual and emotional crescendos that resonated deeply and widely, inward and outward—and then I felt invited to pause. I actually had to pause because by the end of most chapters I found myself crying a…