Prisoner of Hopes

Category: faith

  • Half time

    I was resting in my hotel room and I ran across an obscure program hosted by a singer that I remembered from the 1980’s. The conversation was about women and how easy it is for them to feel invisible in the second half of their life. Transitions such as children growing up, retirement, divorce, widowhood…

  • Roots

    The roads are winding and only sometimes paved.  Creeks and man made ponds dapple the landscape, visible between tall stands of oak and pine. Heaven on Earth.  Turkey vultures strut through barren fields.  Rocks are plentiful in the overturned soil.  Cattle call across the hills and hollows. Hauntingly beautiful and impossibly difficult terrain. It is…

  • Invisible

    Blame it on the weather or perhaps the post Christmas Blues, but the last several days I have been melancholy. That is far from my usual optimistic self. I have felt invisible, tucked away in my quiet corner, left to do the many things that need to be done with no fanfare or hoopla. Melancholia…

  • Coming Home

    It is no secret that I love to stay busy. I love to hike and bike and travel. When I leave the house, I enjoy anticipating what each new day may bring. Perhaps it is innate in me, this sense of adventure. Perhaps it was cultivated by my elders, who made each step outside the…

  • Christmas Whispers

    What is it about Christmas preparations that create such divided feelings? For some, it is (to borrow a cliche) the most wonderful time of the year. For others it is a chore that produces anxiety and depression. Perhaps Christmas magic as an ideal is hard to achieve, but Christmas magic as a simple daily experience…

  • Transported

    Last evening, I happened upon a program I had never before encountered. The set was cheesy, a tiny theater set up to look like the interior of a barn. The host looked as if he had just been picked up out of rural 1970 on his way to work at a bank. As a matter…