The two great-grandkids, 9 and 6, had a wonderful time. I have to get that out of the way. As a mature adult, I realize that 85% of this trip was about the kids having a wonderful time. And they did. Did I mention that? They did not, however, know what was going on behind the scenes at the Happiest Place on Earth. So here is where I…
We are going to Walt Disney World in Orlando in February 2022. I thought I better start sharing my experiences helping to plan this trip. In the year 2000, Sue and I took the grandkids – Shelby and Ryan – to Walt Disney World. Yes, there was a spreadsheet involved, but all in all it was a simpler time. Sue acted mostly as sherpa holding on to our…
Throughout the pandemic, we have observed a range of behaviors from people our age. I know a grandma just recently recovered from breast cancer who flies out west to visit loved ones and travels regularly with her significant other. Another couple who regularly entertain the unvaccinated grandkids and have taken multiple Road Scholar trips. An urban couple who have remained in virtual lockdown the entire time — no…
Music – so-called Christian “praise” music at that – is turning out to be a spiritual lifeline of sorts these days. I did not see that one coming. About a year ago, I announced a break from Christianity, the institution. Over that period, we attended our church a handful of times under COVID conditions – outdoors, with masks, and no singing until that brief respite in July. It…
My family is fragmented, and the most immediate members of it are and were broken in many ways. My father, and his father, were scoundrels at best . . . I won’t go into what they were at worst. At any rate, dysfunction caused me to not care, rather belligerently, about my family roots. When I saw people gleefully discovering their history on Ancestry.com, I scoffed. Who cares?…
Last night we attended a Christmas Eve service with 9,200 people we didn’t know. But they weren’t really strangers. It was the Washington National Cathedral’s Christmas Eve Eucharist, and it unfolded with pipe organ preludes, youthful choristers, and a procession complete with bishop, Cathedral dean, and vergers. There was the goosebump-inducing descant of “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” There were enough people present in the Cathedral – although…
I am taking a sabbatical from Christianity. And I think Jesus will understand. There are many reasons, and I am not proselytizing you to join me. The bottom line is I believe the net effect of Christianity over the course of history, including American history, is negative. Even evil. Not just the Crusades and the Inquisition. More recent history: Manifest Destiny and genocide. Slavery and Jim Crow. Hatred…
The yellow house on shore stayed in the same spot, and I had been watching it for what seemed like an eternity as I struggled to reach Tower Beach on Rehoboth Bay. The swells on open water were rougher than I had ever faced. The dark clouds were threatening and the wind blew right at us. The shore never seemed to be getting any closer. At that point,…
At the beginning of 2020, pre-pandemic, I set a reading goal in Goodreads of 20 books. That may not sound like a lot, but if you read with moving lips like I do – constantly referring to maps and Googling people and events – it is a respectable aspiration. At the beginning of June, according to Goodreads, I was “three books ahead of schedule.” I decided June would…
Certain determined creatures don’t know there is a pandemic out there. They flit around in the understory or perch on tree limbs, foraging and pecking and standing out in their fine yellow, blue and red plumage. They trill and squawk and sing cheerily. When they are feeling magnanimous, they will sit patiently while I set up my tripod and focus my long lens on them. I have always…
The altar was adorned with lilies and the white and gold frontal signifying a High Holy Day. There was a guest trumpeter playing a fanfare. There was our deacon, Pat, singing Mozart’s “Alleluia” and hitting that shattering stratospheric high note at the end. There was the He-is-Risen return to singing the Gloria. And there were our fellow parishioners, sending up hearts and likes and tears and “Amens” and…
