Monday, November 11, 2024

Veterans Day 2024

Today is Veterans Day.  Here is a picture of my favorite veteran, my dad:


He's my favorite veteran for obvious reasons, but there are many other veterans who would also be favorites:  my father-in-law, an Army veteran, and my Florida pastor Keith Spencer and his wife, Piper Spencer, Navy veterans, for example.  I think of one of my best friends from high school, Chum Kimsey:


The above picture is from 2014, when she had just been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which would take her life.  She served in the Army in the late 80's and early 90's.

Yesterday we watched a Veterans Day concert, which made me feel both grateful and teary-eyed.  I thought of our current country, how few people serve in this way, even as many people say they support our military.  The concert contained footage from an Honor Flight event, which made me think of my own experience with my dad and sister on a similar trip.  



It was both a joyful trip and a somber one, being surrounded by living veterans, all older than 65, and the monuments to the wars that they fought.  It was a sobering reminder of the ultimate cost that so many veterans pay/paid.

I am also thinking of all the quilters I know who make quilts for veterans as a way to say thank you:


I'm not at a point yet where I could do that--but this morning, I'm wishing that I could show gratitude in this way, a way that results in a beautiful quilt.  For this morning, though, words will have to do.

Sunday, November 10, 2024

A Sermon to Connect Quilt Camp, Widows, and Two Copper Coins

 November 10, 2024

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott


Mark 12:38-44


All week, I’ve been thinking of widows.  I’ve been thinking of the widow in our Old Testament reading who gave her last bit of food and water to Elijah.  I’ve been thinking of the widow in the New Testament who gave two copper coins, all that she had, to pay her temple tax.  It wasn’t until the end of the week that I returned to the New Testament reading and saw the mirror image here, the behavior of the hypocritical scribes, the behavior of the widow.


In our Gospel text for this morning, it’s tempting to focus on the widow who gave all that she had.  After all, we’ve been here before.  Just a few weeks ago, we had the story of the wealthy man who approached Jesus wanting to know what to do to get eternal life.  Do you remember the answer?  Give all earthly wealth to the poor.


And here’s a widow, doing just that, giving up everything, in contrast to the rich who are plunking money into the Temple coffers.  Why, the sermon practically writes itself!


For all of you anticipating a good old-fashioned stewardship sermon, I’m about to disappoint you.  I don’t think that Jesus is telling us that we must give up ALL that we have.  Go back to the text.  He observes the widow’s actions.  He does not say, “Go and do likewise.”


So what is the point?  What are we to learn?  Let’s look at the passage again.  Let’s look at the contrasts.


The first contrast is easiest to see:  rich people giving large sums vs. widow woman giving 2 copper coins.  She’s not tithing.  She’s giving all that she owns.  And for what?  Two copper coins would buy nothing.  She’s not required to give all that she has.  We might build a back story for her.  Maybe she gives all that she has because she believes in the mission of the Temple in a way that the rich people do not.  But we don’t know that—we don’t have that insight into either the rich benefactors or the widow.


Who gets that level of backstory?  It’s the scribes in the beginning of today’s Gospel.  Please note that Jesus is not condemning all scribes or all religious authorities or every member of an elite class.  Jesus condemns the ones who like the attention that they get because they have authority.  They get to wear the robes and eat the food and have the best seats and be treated with respect—and Jesus seems to suggest that they are holding their office for all the wrong reasons, so that they can get the high regard of their society—and so that they can get rich.


And how do they get rich?  By robbing widows.  By taking from the poor, from people on the lowest rungs of society, from those who can least afford to lose what they have.  By taking from the very people that they are supposed to help.  This Gospel is less about giving all that we have and more about hypocrisy, in some ways, and you don’t need me to preach a sermon on the perils of hypocrisy.  Every day’s news cycle offers at least one warning about the perils of hypocrisy.


As I’ve been thinking about the widows in this week’s readings, I’ve been thinking about all the ways that our societal structures put people in danger, particularly people with little political power.  An election season might make us think that we have the power to change things, and sometimes we do.  But Jesus reminds us again and again that the system is rigged.  Our earthly empires, whether it’s the Roman empire of Jesus’ time or various societal systems of our own time—our earthly empires are not looking out for the powerless.  On the contrary, they are getting rich by exploiting those who have so little.


I hear the words of my Preaching professor echoing in my head:  where is the good news in all of this?  The widow in the Old Testament gives us the good news that although we may not be able to reverse earthly empires who prey on the weak, that it is God who is in charge.  The widows in both of our texts for today give all that they have.  Maybe it’s because they have faith in the Temple system or maybe it’s because they were expecting to die anyway.  They give, and God transforms.


Let’s be very clear on this.  With both widows, we don’t know their mental state.  God doesn’t reward them with abundance because of their trust or their faith or their good works.  God gives them abundance because that is what God does.  The proper response to God’s abundance is to share.


I have seen this dynamic in action this week, very far away from the corridors of political power that were playing out across the nation and the airwaves and social media.  I have spent this week not only with Biblical widows but with 21st century widows and older women.  I have seen the Kingdom of God this week, because I have been at Quilt Camp at Lutheridge.


In the three days before Quilt Camp, we got a message from one of the leaders.  Wouldn’t it be great if we brought any extra quilts we have --  we could share them with people in the western NC area, like the Lutheridge staff, people who have suffered so much loss and have still showed up to work.  On the first night, the leader who had sent out the message confided in me that she thought we didn’t have enough quilts even to share with the Lutheridge staff.


But it was early in the retreat, and by the morning, after everyone had a chance to get settled, we had more than enough.  Plus, one of the other leaders went through her own fabric stash and organized it into a pillowcase project for us to do.  We each received a ziplock bag with 3 pieces of fabric cut into the pattern we would use—plus, there were extra bags, just in case.  And by the end of the retreat, we got them all made so that they could be taken to a local quilt fabric shop to be given to community people who had lost their houses.


You might say, “You were making pillowcases for people who have lost everything?  Talk about two copper coins!  What kind of stupid offering is that?”


It is the kind of offering that we have.  We have fabric in abundance, we have time, and we have skills.  And a pillowcase can be used for so many things beyond just protecting a pillow.


As I watched us working on our own projects while also spending time on projects to help others, I thought of what Jesus so often said, “The Kingdom of God is at hand”—or as I so often paraphrase:  “This is what the community of God looks like.”  We had women of various ages and all sorts of backgrounds and out of a wide range of political and religious beliefs.  In a different setting, we might not have much to say to each other.  But at Quilt Camp, where we worked on projects to help others, we connected in a way that was even deeper than it would have been if we had just worked on our own projects.


This is what the Kingdom of God looks like:  giving to those who have less, giving what we have, pledging our allegiance to the vision of community that Jesus tells us is possible.


Saturday, November 9, 2024

First Full Day at Quilt Camp

When I go to a quilt retreat, I often get questions about what happens at a quilt retreat.  Yesterday was a fairly typical day at the quilt retreat that Lutheridge offers, so let me make some observations.

--It's held in the main gathering place, the huge Faith Center.  Every quilter gets two tables, which leaves room for quilters to bring other things they might need, like a table for a sewing machine, stackable shelving units, bins of fabrics, and such.  There's a power cord at each work space.  There's lots of wall space and floor space for figuring out patterns.  This photo gives you an idea of the set up.




--The most important aspect of the Lutheridge retreat:  we can make it be what we want it to be.  If we need a nap or a walk, wonderful.  If we want to lose ourselves in a project and be left alone, that's fine.  If we want to walk from table to table and chat, great.  If we need help assembling/figuring out a project, we've got lots of folks who are happy to pitch in.




--We're here for three full days, plus an evening beginning and a morning ending (Wed. afternoon arrival with an evening start through Sunday morning).  It's great to have that much time.  Much of that time is unstructured.




--I have always had online work that had to be done while I was there, and it's fine to sit at my work space with my laptop.  I love doing grading or working on a seminary paper surrounded by my quilt squares and gorgeous fabric.  Sew a little, grade a little, and wow, I can be productive!




--This year, we're taking an afternoon yoga break, a 20 minute session of chair yoga led by a friend of the retreat who is certified.  Wow!  I hope we figure out a way to do this every year.

--Every retreat offers a focused learning opportunity or two.  This retreat, we learned a pillowcase pattern and some techniques for binding.  Some retreats, when there hasn't been a hurricane six weeks ago, we have a local expert come in to lead a workshop.  The learning opportunities are optional.

--We eat our meals in the dining hall.  It's amazing to have camp stuff there to do the cooking and the clean up and to make decisions about the meals and the shopping.  When I'm on a retreat, I realize how much of my time each week goes to food.   Don't get me wrong--I love cooking and shopping and eating.  But it takes more time than I realize until I'm not doing it for a few days.




--Because it's a retreat at a church camp, there are some spiritual aspects.  They are ecumenical, since we come from a variety of faith expressions, and not participating in evening devotion time is an option too.  On the last night, there is a worship service with communion.  To me, it feels very non-proselytizing, and the view of God is an expansive one of a creator full of grace and love for all of creation.  Each quilt retreat has a different Bible passage to focus our devotion and worship time.



--We often do a service project.  This year, we made pillow cases for displaced people, and we brought quilts we had already made.  You can see the quilts in a pile above, and below, spread out across the chairs in our evening space for gathering:


 
--We brought 22 quilts to give away.  We also give money to camp for summer camp scholarships.




--We have show and tell every night, where each quilter is invited to bring a project, either completed or in progress.  At the last night, we have wine, cheese, snacks, and a quilt walk where we display projects at our tables.

--But the most important element of this retreat is the fellowship and support.  In some ways, we are all so different from each other in terms of family, background, career, upbringing, beliefs of all sorts.  But we love fabric and we love quilting and we love each other, even if we've only known each other for a few days.  Many of us return year after year, and it builds a beautiful community--one which leaves me hopeful for the future.


Friday, November 8, 2024

A Quilt Retreat in the Days after a Presidential Election

I thought about writing a longer blog post about the election.  But I'm not really sure I have that much more to say.  I could see the next 4 years going any number of ways, from nuclear mishaps/catastrophes, to more general chaos, to an administration that manages to do some good and some bad.  I expect to be somewhat insulated:  I'm not an outspoken opponent, I'm an older woman which buys me some protection from misogyny, I have economic resources, I live in the mountains, I'm a English teacher which at this point is still a job that people want a human to do.  I will do what I can to help those who are not so lucky.

Do I think that I have voted in my last election?  No.  I think we'll have other elections, but they may not mean much--that has often been the case in my lifetime, so I won't assume that democracy is dead.  Even though I thought about sending an e-mail with a reference to A Handmaid's Tale ("See you in the Colonies!"), I don't think we're headed to that scenario--Trump  doesn't have the kind of focus and self-control that would make that possible. 

While lots of people have been saying lots of things about the election, I've been at the twice-a-year quilt retreat at Lutheridge.  When I plunked down my deposit back in the spring, I didn't realize it would be right after the election, and that wouldn't have made a difference anyway.  I've been grateful to have a place to sit and sew, but then again, I'm always grateful for a place to sit and sew, whether it's a chair in my living room or a work station at a retreat center.


It's been a strange quilting retreat in other ways.  I have a full-time teaching job, which is different from when I left my full-time administrator job to come to quilt camp.  If we hadn't had a hurricane, I might have taken yesterday, the first full day of quilt camp, off, but I decided that I didn't feel good about that.  Happily, I can both teach and come back to quilt camp.

On Wednesday afternoon (the retreat started Wed. at 3 for those of us who could arrive then), I sat at my table for a bit, just feeling discombobulated, discombobulated because I came directly from work, discombobulated because I didn't feel like sewing yet, discombobulated because I was still digesting election results.  Yesterday when I returned from Spartanburg, I expected to need a bit of decompression time.  Because I was expecting it, it didn't last as long.

Two years ago, I first started assembling these log cabin patches:



In these few days at quilt camp, I hope to get them all sewed together into a quilt top.  I am putting squares into 4 square lengths, because they're all slightly different in terms of measurements.  I am paying some attention to colors and patterns, but more attention to measurements at this point.  I'm trying not to worry about what happens when I try to put these 4 square lengths into one quilt top--or to be more accurate, since I am not worried, I am trying not to try to figure out how to assemble them yet.  It will all come together.

I am also hoping that this quilting is a metaphor for what can happen on the national political scene.  It feels like we're in a time of ripping.  It's the ripping sound that gets a lot of coverage.  But far away from the national commentators, small scraps can be assembled into sturdy quilts that will keep us all warm and protected.

Thursday, November 7, 2024

The Apocalypse Gal Weighs in on the Election

Now that I've had a bit of time to process these election results, let me make a post.  Here's my overall take away:  we are headed into hard times.  We were always headed into hard times, and while the shape of those hard times may be affected by the Trump presidency (and the outcomes will be), the election of Harris would not have avoided those hard times.

You may say, "Yes, Apocalypse Gal, Kristin, you always think we're headed into hard times."  That's true, and I'm often right in the overall drift to hard times, if not the particulars.  But let me elaborate:

--In the past two weeks, bird flu was found in people who didn't have close connection to farm animals, in two people who lived together, which makes some scientists think it's airborne in ways it hasn't been before.

--In the past two weeks, bird flu was found in pigs.  Pigs are the animal where flus combine and become more transmissible.

--It is unseasonably warm as I write this (60 degrees in mid-November!), and we are on track to have the hottest year of human life on earth so far.

--There are wars and rumors of war.

--Just this morning, I read that the German governing coalition has collapsed.

So, the shape of the hard times coming, as I see it, involves flu and war and climate change.  No one will be able to make those things go away, and we've seen that most humans don't have much capacity for navigating countries to safety.  It was always going to be a rough 4 years, no matter who won.

Let the Republicans see what they can do.  Let the Democrats dream of something different to present to voters in 2028.  Let us see what happens.  Let us get our vaccines; there is a bird flu vaccine already, so that's good news.  Let us figure out how to make our communities more resilient against all the climate change threats that are going to intensify for us and for our children and grandchildren.

Someone needs to keep the longer view in mind.  It might as well be us.

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Sylvia Plath's Wisdom

I woke up at 2 a.m. and thought, let me get up and see how the election is going.  I knew I wouldn't be going back to bed.  But I didn't expect the election to be so nearly settled.

I've been scrolling and writing in my offline journal and writing an e-mail here and there.  I thought of my poem "History's Chalkboards."  When I wrote it back in 2016, I didn't think it would continue to be relevant in the way that it has.  As short a time ago as yesterday, I didn't think it would continue to be relevant. 

In 2016,  I couldn't get the Sylvia Plath quote out of my head. Did I read Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" before I wrote it?  I think I was writing it, and the title came to me, and I looked it up and proceeded to read it.  

The poem scared me a little, but my spouse liked it.  It was accepted for publication more quickly than just about any other poem I've sent out.  Adanna published it in 2017.

This morning, I find the reference to the violence and societal upheaval of the 60's (the fire next time) to be both alarming and comforting.  We have been here before, and a better society emerged out of those ashes.  Perhaps we will be that fortunate again.  Perhaps we will survive the societal winnowing again.


History’s Chalkboards


“Every woman adores a Fascist,  
The boot in the face, the brute  
Brute heart of a brute like you.”
                            “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath


Every woman adores a Fascist.
Turns out men do too.
But we imagine the boot
on someone else’s face,
a face that doesn’t look
like ours, the face that arrives
to take our jobs and steal
our factories, while laughing
at us in a foreign language.

No God but capitalism,
the new religion, fascism disguised
as businessman, always male,
always taking what is not his.

Brute heart, not enough stakes
to keep you dead. 
We thought we had vanquished
your kind permanently last century
or was it the hundred years before?

As our attics crash into our basements,
what soft rains will come now?
The fire next time,
the ashes of incinerated bodies,
the seas rising on a tide
of melted glaciers.

And so we return to history’s chalkboard,
the dust of other lessons in our hair.
We make our calculations.

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Non-Partisan Words of Hope on Election Day

I have now voted in many elections.  Some seemed like the most consequential ones in my lifetime--and in later years, I looked back at those oh so consequential elections that no longer loomed as large.  I've voted for a variety of people, and usually, I could assume that the ones I didn't vote for would do their best and wouldn't be that bad.

I've voted for women before; at times I felt hopeful about their chances, and at other times, I was voting for the thrill of voting for a woman.  My first presidential election was in 1984, and I was one of the few people who voted for Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro.  How long ago that seems, when an incumbent candidate was running on a "Morning in America" theme and the opponent offered similar sentiments, if not similar policy proposals.

On election morning of 2016, I made this Facebook post:  "For those of us feeling fretful on this election day, I say, "Be not afraid!" We are a nation of quilters, adept at taking frayed scraps and turning them into comforters. We are a nation of tinkerers, who can take metal scraps and turn them into cars and computers. We will be OK."

Most days, I still believe that.  There are seasons that remind me more forcefully of that truth--like the month after Hurricane Helene where I've been astonished at how many people were out helping each other.  There are other seasons that lead me to despair.  Most seasons are a fairly even mix of hope and despair.

Here's a look at my office door, with sentiments that we need today and every day:


I take a long view; even when it's bleak, I think that there have been much bleaker times, in both U.S. history and world history.   I'm thinking of eastern Europe--that wall that came down suddenly in 1989. I'm thinking about Nelson Mandela released from jail and shortly thereafter, to become the first freely elected president of South Africa and a nation transformed--that outcome was so impossible that few of us dared to hope for it. Somewhere in my photo albums, I have a fading picture of a friend wearing his "Free Mandela" t-shirt. He'd been in jail for our whole lives, and we expected he would die there, t-shirts or no t-shirts.

I think it's important to remember how strong the forces of evil seemed then. But we built our shantytowns on the lawn, we helped Central Americans get to Canadian safety, we demanded changes in U.S. policy which were ignored or dismissed. We bought our protest albums and went to concerts. Elders sneered and warned us about the necessity of establishing anti-communist bulwarks, even if they were staffed by genocidal maniacs, as much of Latin America was in the 1980's.

Now those seem like very different times--but perhaps they are not so very different.  Now we wait, and in the coming days, we'll have a better sense of the work that will need to be done.  Now would be a good time to pray and to visualize and to hope.

If you came here hoping for prayers, I wrote some non-partisan prayers for election day and put them in this blog post.

Monday, November 4, 2024

Soup for All the Saints

I had a fairly easy trip across the mountains yesterday, much easier than last week.  I was able to take I 26 the whole way, and much of the landscape was relatively undamaged.  Along the Nolichucky River in Tennessee, however, the damage was astonishing--the pictures just don't prepare me for the changed land.

We had a good All Saints Sunday at Faith Lutheran.  I was very happy with my youth sermon (go to this blog post for details about how to connect saints and gourds and braided bread) and my adult sermon was fine, but not as creative.  


I headed home to my spouse who's struggling with a back injury after too much time with a chainsaw.  I'm trying not to worry, but I'm worried.  I do wonder if I would worry as much if he hadn't had the horrible back issue that led to successful surgery in 2013.

I got some seminary writing done while my soup was warming.  I ate several bowls of broccoli cheddar cheese soup and wondered why I don't make this soup more often.  In part, because the clean up is annoying, in part because the blending is annoying, in part because I don't make soup as often as I once did.

Why was I making soup?  To be part of this:


Our neighborhood had an All Saints Soup gathering in the late afternoon, so I went up the hill to help set up.  It was a beautiful event, and even though some part of me is bone tired all the time once we get to November, there's still enough of the non-tired part of me to take joy in these kinds of gatherings.



I am taking over the position of being the person who plans these events in the coming year.  Happily, I won't be reinventing the wheel.


It was good to be with my neighbors, many of whom are also good friends.  It was nourishing to catch up, and I felt better knowing that I was not the only one wondering where October went, feeling sad because one of my favorite months just slipped away from me.


Clean up went fairly quickly, and soon we were home, waiting for football to be over, waiting to watch The Simpsons.  It was the Halloween special, the Tree House of Horror, and as with most years, I found myself comparing it to past years:  not as brilliant, but still better than much pop culture.

I was sad this morning to hear about the death of Quincy Jones--what a life he had!  I knew that he had done amazing things, but reading about them all, in one article, really made me appreciate him further. 

 


And it makes me even more strengthened in my resolve to appreciate my own life.  October may be gone, but November has its own autumnal beauty, especially this year, when we're having very mild days.  Let me remember to appreciate it all.



Sunday, November 3, 2024

First Morning, Eastern Standard Time Returns

My body has no idea what time it is, but that's often the case.  I've been up for hours, in part because of the time change, in part because I'm often awake very early in the morning.  My normal wake up time is between 3 and 4.

I've been working on seminary papers, working on sermon revisions (the minor kind), getting ready to drive across the mountain to Bristol, Tennessee to preach and preside at Faith Lutheran.  I'm told that a lane each way on I 26 is now open, but even if it's not, the detour through the town of Erwin is not bad. The other routes are in much worse shape.

Yesterday I felt a bit sad and grumbly.  I didn't want to write my seminary essay that's due today, and I didn't want to write my sermon.  What a difference a day makes!

I went for a walk in the mid-afternoon.   Lutheridge was busier than I expected, and I made this Facebook post:  "Although we're surrounded by giant piles of dead trees, a group of YMCA youth plays football and a coach says, "Hustle up." And just like that my sad mood lifts a bit."

It occurs to me that even though I'm keeping track of time and expecting a normal-ish trip, that I shouldn't linger here on this writing.  Let me close and get ready.  It will be nice to leave in the not-pitch-black darkness.

Saturday, November 2, 2024

Days of Dwindling Light and Lingering Exhaustion

It's been a strange week, full of attempts to vote (and finally casting our votes) and gathering gloom.  In some ways, it hasn't been gloomy but unseasonably warm.  Still, for the last couple of days, I've just given up and gone to bed between 7 and 7:30.  I've had this deep exhaustion, and it's an exhaustion that sweeps in periodically throughout the day.

It may be a post-hurricane exhaustion, or it may be the tiredness that I often experience in November--the exhilaration of early autumn has worn off, but there's still a ways to go before the semester is over.

Tonight we set our clocks back, which will probably mean that I go to bed between 5 and 6 p.m. for a week or two; I'll resist, but there will be a night or two for these first weeks of November where I give in and go to sleep even before toddlers do--that's what happened last year.

That said, I'll be very glad to get the extra hour of daylight in the morning.  My MWF commute down the mountain to Spartanburg has felt very harrowing in the past week or two, especially when it's been drizzling.  It will feel less harrowing when it's not pitch black.  Let me be honest--it's also harrowing because of the road being a bit more broken up after the hurricane. In the light, I can see the new potholes and seams that are coming apart.

Let me record one last thing, and then I need to turn my attention to seminary writing and sermon writing.  Yesterday on my way home from Spartanburg, I stopped and got the ingredients for a sensible dinner:  salmon and salad fixings.  But as I drove home with the groceries, I decided that I really wanted pizza, so we ordered pizza, which we ate while we watched a Muppet movie on Disney+.  It felt both like a special occasion and evidence of exhaustion.

Friday, November 1, 2024

Hurricane Debris and Early Voting on Halloween

We had a quiet Halloween last night--but that's not unusual for us.  We live in a quiet neighborhood that's not really safe for kids walking in the dark, because we have very few streetlights and no sidewalks.  It's not really safe this year, with all the remains of downed trees.  We have very few families with children who live in this tiny residential section of Lutheridge, the church camp.

Before our quiet evening, we headed to Fairview to vote, which I thought would be an easier polling place, once we finally got there.  It was much easier, once we finally got there.  There was exactly one person in line ahead of us.  The polling place was well run, and we were in and out in fifteen minutes.

The town of Fairview had more severe damage from Hurricane Helene, including the library.  The library itself wasn't open, but voting happened in the small meeting room.  I'm not sure what the damage was, because everything looked to be normal.  I didn't see a tarp on the roof, for example.  There wasn't mud that indicated flooding had happened.

We took Cane Creek Road, and there was plenty of mud along Cane Creek Road.  Cane Creek runs beside the road, and it had overrun its banks during Hurricane Helene.  The damage was staggering, with stacks of debris all along the way.  I cannot imagine where all this debris will end up, debris from all across the mountain.

It was a gorgeous day, another sleeveless shirt kind of day.  On our way back, we stopped at Turgua Brewery; I wasn't sure it would be open, since it was so close to the creek.  I knew if it was open, they could probably use our business, but more than that, I wanted a place to sit outside in the sun with my sun-starved spouse.

The brewery was open, and although the outdoor space had a few picnic tables, so we got ourselves settled.  The beers were tasty, and the sun was glorious.  I felt relief at getting voting done early, along with happiness that so many people are voting.  I always get a bit emotional thinking about what the ancestors did to get more voting rights for all, and I'm always happy when people are voting.

I am also amazed at the pace of hurricane recovery, at the presence of disaster assistance folks from the federal government to private groups.  We went through several hurricanes, under several different administrations, in South Florida, and never had this level of help.  Is it because Hurricane Helene was more severe?  Is it because it's an election year?  Do people care more about the mountains than South Florida?  Is it because the mountains are closer to assistance than the tip of the Florida peninsula?  It seems like any or all of those things could be true.

We ended our Halloween by watching the original Halloween movie, the 1978 John Carpenter film.  I'd seen bits and pieces, but never the whole thing.  It's about as scary as I can stand, and it's not as scary, because I had seen the ending, so I knew that one babysitter would survive.  I'd still have preserved something lighter, but if those shows exist in our streaming services, we couldn't find them.

I feel like I should end by saying something pithy about the survival instincts of virginal babysitters and the value of a good coathanger in a closet and our modern time, but I'll just close by remembering one of the best compliments I've ever gotten, on Nov. 1 of 1983 when one of my male friends said that I reminded him of the character in Halloween who survived, because I would be able to stay cool in an emergency or any kind of crisis.  

May it continue to be so.

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Summer Vibes on Halloween

Yesterday I spent a chunk of time sorting through photos for a haiku creating module that I'm doing with my English 101 students.  Although I took this picture in late August, this one leapt out at me as having a spooky, Halloweeny vibe:


But as I looked through the file this morning, I thought others might work better:


The first picture will give students more to write about--more about this project later.  Back to today's writing vibe, which is more late summer than autumnal.

Here I am, astonished at the fact that it is Halloween.  In past years, I've spent more time in stores that have costumes, bags of candy for trick-or-treaters, and decorations, and these displays often go up in August.  This year, there is a Helene shaped hole in my October.  I went to a few stores in Columbia, SC, when I went down to get internet access and electricity at a friend's house, and I remember feeling astonished that the calendar had kept rollicking along without me.  The grocery stores here have very small displays of candy.

Plus, it's been a very warm autumn.  In fact, the last few nights, I've had the windows open, and yesterday, I went for an afternoon walk in a sleeveless shirt.

How long ago it seems now, back in early September, when I bought my first pumpkin to create a pile of pumpkins that I like to have at the end of the driveway, by my mailbox:



Last year, we were well into 2024, months after I tossed the pumpkins in the back yard to make room for Christmas displays before the squirrels began to nibble on them.  This year, they've begun--and that's fine with me.

It's rattling to think that in a month, I'll need to be thinking about those Christmas decorations for the fence line.  My favorite time of year, from late August to December 24 is quick slipping away.  Let me try to be more present in the current moment.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Our First Attempt at Voting Early

We planned to vote early yesterday.  I looked up the wait times at the Buncombe county website, and at our closest location, the wait time was 25 people.  That seemed manageable, so off we went.

Our county has early voting at local libraries, and our closest branch doesn't have much parking, even when there's no voting happening.  It's also beside one of the bigger local high schools, so I worried a bit about getting in the way of carpools.  But I thought that we could park there, if need be.

Ha!  The kindly traffic directing person told me that the overflow parking across the street at the church was full, and that all the traffic clogging the main road was voting traffic, not carpool traffic.  So off we went, across back roads, and we will try again later.

I wanted to vote early yesterday in case we couldn't cast our votes--we'd still have other chances.  But I didn't really expect that we wouldn't be able to vote yesterday.  Happily, I have several back up plans.  We'll try to go to a different library branch on Thursday.  If all else fails, polls open at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, and I can vote before I head down the mountain to Spartanburg.  I don't want to wait until after work on election day, for fear of being unable to get there.

I am not unhappy that we couldn't vote yesterday, although I did want to get it done.  But I am thrilled that so many are voting.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Halloween Approaches: Haunted by the Ghosts of Halloweens Past

Halloween approaches.  I have been having slightly scary dreams, the kind where I know that something bad is about to happen, so when I jerk awake, I decide not to drift back off.  Last night it was a sparkling ocean with moving walkways on slender spires far above the ocean, heading off to some final destination that seemed unlikely, but my mom had gone on ahead and didn't have her phone.

When I write it out, it doesn't seem as slightly scary as I thought it was when I was dreaming.  Let me capture a few moments that seem to crystallize what this late October feels like:

--I heard a banging on the deck--something was clearly out there.  I wasn't worried that it was a murderer or a burglar. Here in the mountains, I'm much more worried about bears.  But it was a raccoon.  I wasn't quick enough with my camera/phone.  Now all is quiet on the deck.

--Last night, we saw one of the numerous ads for other Roku channels that run on the Roku channel we've chosen.  The ad was for the Haunted channel, which reminded me that Halloween approaches, and I've barely noticed.  Last year I was sketching witches and cats and big moons and haunted houses and pumpkins, like this sketch:



--This year, I spent my sketching time in October sketching broken trees:



--As we watched the promo for the Haunted channel, I realized that what I really want is a Halloween Lite channel, where we could watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charley Brown and every Halloween special episode of Roseanne and other sitcoms.

--In past Halloweens, I've written poems about being the ghost haunting the house.  This line popped into my head:  "I am the haunted house."  It doesn't feel particularly original, but it does seem like it would take me interesting places.

--As I looked through my camera files on the phone, I realize I've taken lots of photos.  On my Saturday walk, I found this weaving of dried vines, still slightly curved from where it had been around a tree trunk.  



I carried it with me and put it in various places as I thought about how it reminded me of a corset.  If I had to title this photo, it would be "The Tree Removes Her Corset":




--Yesterday I noticed the shape of leaves on pavement from where they had been before.  The brown is actually mud/dirt, which made me think of God or a storm painting in mud.  


--I also thought of ghosts and hauntings:



--Today we will make our first attempt at early voting; if something should happen, we will make our second attempt on Thursday.  The juxtaposition of voting and Halloween--lots of haunting possible symbolism there.

Monday, October 28, 2024

Wreckage and Ruin on the Way to Church

Yesterday I made the trip to Bristol, Tennessee, where I preach and preside at Faith Lutheran each Sunday.  Yesterday I left at 6:50 a.m.; I took a book with me, in case I got there very early and needed something to do.  Google Maps told me that the optimum route would take me 2 hours and 10 minutes; it took me 2 hours and 45 minutes.

My spouse couldn't go with me yesterday because he's been recovering from the ways his body has been protesting all the chain saw work he did earlier in the week.  I was feeling anxious, so I decided to print the Google Maps directions, in case I got to a part of the backcountry roads and lost cell phone service, which I assumed would mean losing GPS.

I started on I 26, with signs that said the road was closed at exit 3.  I took the exit that got me to US 19, and that road was a 4 lane highway, straight and wide, with only one truck on it.  I thought, well, this isn't too bad. There were trees blazing with autumnal color, and I thought, you wanted to experience autumn in the mountains--here you go.

Then I got on NC197, a two lane road, but still not bad.  There were piles of debris here and there, a tree down here and there.  I was behind an 18 wheeler and a box truck, but that was fine--I wasn't going to be zipping down these roads because I knew that they had only just been restored.

I got to Green Mountain, where the road ran by the North Toe River, and I saw so much devastation.  I know I didn't take in the full extent of it because I was focusing on the road, which looked like it might crumble out from under us at any moment.  The road had stacks of trees on either side, and I am fairly sure that crews just cut out the middle parts of fallen trees to be able to access the roads.  On the other side of the river, railroad tracks had buckled and twisted, like some huge child had a temper tantrum.

As I went up NC226, up and up the mountain, I saw portions of the mountains where every tree had been flattened.  Yet there were other sections in the next curve of the road that hadn't been touched, trees in full autumnal glory.  The road got curvier, and I felt increasingly anxious--there was no shoulder at all, and the 18 wheeler truck ahead of me felt free to use both lanes to navigate the curves.  What if there had been oncoming traffic?

Eventually, I pulled into the parking lot of Faith Lutheran.  I felt frazzled, but took some deep breaths and pulled myself back together again.  Just 20 miles earlier, I had been in Elizabethton, Tennessee, where a different river had overswept its banks and destroyed everything in its path.  And here I was in Bristol, where the community was largely unharmed. 

When I think of October, I think I'll remember this feeling more than any other:  how can some of us suffer so much damage, while others of us (me, for example) emerge relatively unscathed?  

On the way home, my smart phone routed me down I 26, and I decided to follow its instructions.  If I was turned away and had to backtrack, I had time.  The road was closed at exit 3, at Irwin, NC, but the detour was clearly marked.  I got back on I 26 and went back across the mountains that way.

The damage at Irwin was as catastrophic as the news reports made it seem, with wrecked roads and houses no longer there, swept away when the Nolichucky River rose.  I remember last winter when all the leaves were down, and I realized what the true contours of the river were, how some of the houses weren't too far away from that wide river.  I think those houses are gone now.  

There weren't many of us going across the mountains, but as I got closer to Asheville, traffic increased.  I got gas at the station near my house.  It's always crowded, because the price is cheap, but yesterday was worse than usual.  I was glad to get home; I've been through hurricanes before, and I know there's a point when the "we're all in this together" phase of recovery shifts to despair and rage as the pace of recovery takes so very long.

At the end of the afternoon, with no fanfare at all, we realized that our internet had been restored. I spent the rest of the day, expecting it to go out again, but so far, it has held.  I'm still boiling several pots of water a day, but that inconvenience is so minor, compared to the wreckage and ruin I witnessed yesterday.

A single picture and even a series of pictures can't really do justice to the scale of the wreckage and ruin.  Neither can these words.  I've seen article after article that tells of people swept away in the raging rivers.  Those words, also, can't make sense of it all.

On some level, humans aren't equipped to make sense of destruction on this scale, whether caused by nature or caused by humans.  But as with the pandemic, it makes sense to create a record of what I've seen.  It may never be important to historians, but it's important to me to bear witness.

Saturday, October 26, 2024

Writing, Sketching, Writing

In my office, I have a bag of leaves.  In mid-September, they were brilliantly colored when I picked them up off the ground.  By afternoon, when I used them in class, they had started to fade.  I had my English 100 students write descriptions.


I thought about having them sketch and then write again--would the writing change?  I didn't have pencils, so I decided to revisit that idea later.



The day after the hurricane, I noticed all the acorns and pine cones on the ground.  I decided to pick them up.  I made sure to pick up enough so that each student could have an object.  When I picked them up, I had no idea it would be so long before I returned to my in-person classes.



This week, I tried an experiment.  On the first day, I had them choose either a pine cone or an acorn off the desk.  They wrote a basic description of the object.  I then had them write a creative type of approach:  write in the voice of the object--what does it have to say to us?

I then made a list of items on the board:  weather related (hurricane, rain), places in nature (mountains, volcanoes), other objects from nature (stone, river).  I had them write again--choose an item from the board and have it speak to your object or create a dialogue.

Then I had them choose six of the most interesting words from all the day's writing and hand them in.  I have created a word list that we'll use next week.  


The next class day, I had them choose the same object from the table.  I had white paper and pencils for them.  We began by drawing the object.


The room was amazingly quiet.  For the first chunk of class time, everyone concentrated on sketching.  And here's what really astonished me:  no one reached for their phones.  It is the only--and I mean the only--time in the class where no one even considered reaching for their phone.

We did a variety of sketches.  My favorite was a variation on an exercise that we did in a seminary class (which I wrote about in a blog post).  I had them divide the paper into 6 squares.  We sketched for 30-40 seconds and then switched squares--quick, quick, quick.


And then I had them write a description of the object again.  I had the students compare the two writings, and we discussed what they saw.  Some of them said they wrote in more detail after sketching.  Some did not.

We talked about the value of doing something else, like sketching, an activity that wasn't going to be part of the grade.  I talked about the value of taking a break from intense studying or writing.

In English 101 class, from October 21-Nov. 1, we're doing a variety of these kinds of approaches, and then students will write an essay about what we did, what they experienced, and analyzing the effectiveness of these activities.  I've done variations of this kind of writing project before, and the writing has been phenomenally better than more "standard" essays.

But more important, watching my students sketch and write helps me feel less exhausted.  It helps me feel like we're doing something post-hurricane to return to normalcy and to affirm the value of writing, sketching, and other endeavors.

Friday, October 25, 2024

Hurricane Helene Leaves New Vistas

Another day without in-home internet access.  My phone-as-hotspot workaround is working, but I'm much more careful.  Yesterday morning, I listened to a conversation on video that's required for one of my seminary classes.  In pre-hurricane days, I might have assumed I could do that in the evening, but I got it done early in the morning, when I can be sure that the hotspot will work.  On Monday, it worked for my Zoom session that is required for a different seminary class, but it did freeze several times, and I had to sign off and log back on.  Happily, my professors know my situation, and they let me back in.

But it could be worse.  One of my colleagues at Spartanburg Methodist College still doesn't have running water.  Another's spouse lost her very successful business at Biltmore Village and is reassessing what the future looks like.  

It was four weeks ago that Hurricane Helene blew through our area, and I am still astonished at the amount of the damage that was done.  After all, this was just a tropical storm, not really a hurricane when it came to us.


Yesterday I walked up to the chapel.  I didn't have much time to walk, so I stayed up there, taking pictures as the light changed.  I wanted to be there when the sun finally rose over the mountain.


I am sad about the loss of trees.  I'd give up the beautiful mountain views that are left behind if we could magically have the trees back.  But since that's not possible, let me appreciate what has been left behind.


I know that other trees will now have a chance to grow and take their place.  Future generations will have a different view.  


Hopefully this cross and meditation space will still be here for them.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

The Death of a Great Liberation Theologian

Gustavo Gutierrez, one of the great liberation theologians, has died.  It's really not a surprise--he lived into his 90's, after all.  Dr. Wingeier-Rayo, one of my seminary professors, contributed to an article in The Washington Post:  "Father Gutiérrez’s approach was 'substantially different from earlier church practice,' Wingeier-Rayo wrote in an email, 'because it took into account the local context and interpreted the Bible from the perspective of the poor and marginalized.' Among other tenets, it emphasized the 'preferential option for the poor,' a belief in giving priority to the powerless; and promoted a broad concept of sin, in which it is unjust not only to lie or steal but to participate in social structures that contribute to inequality."

As we read these words today, they may not seem so radical to us.  We've had 50 years of studying this type of theology, 50 years of hearing these basic ideas, 50 years of going deeper.  We've seen people like Archbishop Romero murdered for these ideas, and he has gone from being controversial to being made a saint.

Some people may reject these ideas for being too political, and liberation theologians come down on different political sides.  The Washington Post article notes:  "The central question of liberation theology, he [Gutierrez] said, was, 'How do you say to the poor, the oppressed, the insignificant person, ‘God loves you?’”

Gutierrez told us again and again that Christians must be in solidarity with the poor, and that solidarity went further than charity dollars and donations.  Liberation theology looks at structural issues that keep people in poverty.  Liberation theology calls us to dismantle these systems of oppression.

I have already seen some social media posts that remind us of how far we have to go in terms of this theology, and that is true.  Still, it is good to remember how far we have come--and how much of that progress is because of liberation theologians like Gustavo Gutierrez.  

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Some Other Beginning's End

I am not walking this morning; it's still a bit scary to walk in the pre-dawn hours, because if a car comes, there's no easy way along the whole route to get out of the way.  The Lutheridge roads were never wide to begin with, and now they have downed trees beside them.  For the next 6 weeks when I will still be commuting down to Spartanburg Methodist College, I will pay attention to when folks are at camp, and if it's a morning like this one, where there's a group who might be going out to make a Starbucks run before the day's events, I'll stay put in the dark morning.

Of course, in another 2 weeks, we'll have shifted away from Daylight Savings Time, so there will be more light in the morning.

Before I close this blog post I want to note that yesterday's English 101 class went well.  On the morning after the storm, I picked up pine cones and acorns.  



I had an idea for our next project, but also, I was struck by the beauty of them and by how many there were on the ground.

Yesterday I had students choose one item from the front table.  



Our first task was to write a description.  At our next class, I'm going to have them try to sketch the pine cone or acorn and then write the description again.

Yesterday, I also had them freewrite, beginning with saying something in the voice of the pine cone or acorn.  Then we listed some items on the board:  elements of nature, elements of weather, a geographical city or place--and I had them write about what that item would say, either to us or to the pine cone or acorn.

I had them choose 6 of the most interesting words from all the writing we had done and put them on a piece of paper--I collected those, and next week, we may do something poetic with them.

It felt good to get back in a teaching routine again, good to be doing something creative and generative.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Autumnal Grief, Autumn Gratitude

Yesterday I went back to the campus of Spartanburg Methodist College.  I am determined to give my students opportunities to get back on track:  for my English 100 students, we'll spend this week and possibly next writing the missing paragraphs and for my English 101 students, we'll write one less essay and their highest essay grade will count 20%, not 10%.

As I was going over deadlines in my English 100 classes, I wrote Nov. 1 on the board and realized that it's a week from Friday.  Some part of me wanted to sob.  I feel like I've missed one of my favorite months and one of my favorite seasons.

Of course, I haven't.  I went on plenty of walks during the weeks just after the hurricane.  However, I wasn't marveling at beautiful leaves on the trees, but trying to avoid all the trees on the ground.  I've been noticing all the changes in the weather, as I always do.  I've made some autumnal treats and enjoyed those made by others.

When I say I've missed autumn, I mean that I mean is that this autumn has been so very different than the autumn I was expecting.  Hopefully I will be able to look back and savor the unexpected good:  I had many more opportunities to have meals with my neighbors than I had planned, for example.

I think of the poems I haven't written, the poems I didn't send out in the increasingly brief window of time that many publications are open for submissions.  But there will be other poems to come out of all of this.  Traditional publication is increasingly precarious, so missing a submission season isn't really a huge deal.

I could continue telling myself to look on the bright side, and I will, but I also want to remember that it's O.K. to feel some grief.  I feel grief mixed with survivor's guilt--my house is fine, and eventually I'll be able to use the water without boiling it, and eventually I'll have in-home internet again.  I'm not trying to navigate contractors and insurance and home repairs, the way I have with past hurricanes.  It could be so, so much worse.

I feel grief, though, not for just myself and the ways that autumn will be different, but grief for the whole region.  I feel grief for my students and colleagues--we're still struggling, and I can see the weariness on our faces.  I feel grief for all the artists and farmers and restaurant owners and others who have lost their whole livelihood--and all the ways that loss will transform the region.

I think it's important to acknowledge the grief, to let myself feel these losses, to let them move through my body--for all the reasons we know why it's important to do that.  It's important to feel what I feel, while trying hard not to bog down, not to be able to move forward.

Above all, I'm trying to remain present, in this present moment--never an easy task for me.  I'm trying to remember the practices that can help me:  counting my gratitudes/blessings, praying for those who are not as fortunate, extending grace to one and all because we're all going through a lot.

Monday, October 21, 2024

Back from the Seminary Onground Intensive

Day 25 with no in-house internet—later I will turn my phone into a hotspot for a brief moment to post this and to do Morning Watch on my Florida church’s Facebook page, which I’ve been doing since the earliest days of Covid. Then I will be back to a familiar post-hurricane routine: how many of the activities that require internet connectivity can I get done at the office? We’re supposed to have unlimited hotspot access at some point, but I don’t know how long it will be before that help ticket gets processed. It may already be processed, but in case it’s not, I need to save that bit of connectivity for my seminary class that meets tonight.

Yesterday’s journey back across I-40 was a sobering reminder of how much worse it could be. Sure, I began the day by boiling water, but at least it’s clear water, so I can have a hot shower later—some people still have water with so much sediment that they can flush toilets but not use the hot water heater. I still have a house where I can boil water and sit in safety, with electric lights and heat.

Yesterday’s trip across the mountains was much better than the one I had a week ago. Of course, I left at 5 a.m. to better my chances of having a better trip. Back in the before-hurricane time, I had planned to come back on Saturday, thinking I would need to go to Bristol to preach on Sunday. When it was clear that roads would not be clear by yesterday, I made the call to send in my sermon. I stayed an extra day because my folks were in town, and with my sister in Maryland, we had a mini-family reunion.

A week ago, I’d have been getting ready to make the drive to the seminary campus in DC for the onground intensive. I didn’t leave quite as early because I thought the traffic would be lighter because of the Monday holiday. Friday turned out to be the easiest commute. Traveling back and forth to campus every day made me very glad that I don’t have to travel back and forth to campus every day.

It was good to be on campus having in-person discussions. It was good to go on a field trip to the Museum of African American History. Our Biblical Storytelling class benefited from being together to have the experience of performing in front of a live audience. And of course, I enjoyed the return to the campus itself—I saw a few faculty members and friends from the time when I lived on campus and took classes.

But I don’t know that I would do an onground intensive again, especially not if I had the kind of job that would require me to take vacation/leave time to do it. I can accomplish most of the same things by way of virtual classes meeting in real time, and it’s less disruptive. And of course, there’s the cost (of travel, of lodging, of food), which I almost always forget to factor in.

This week, I need to help my Spartanburg Methodist students back on track. I have a plan, and I will be gentle with us all. One day at the intensive, I was startled to realize how little time there is left, what a gaping hole in the schedule we have had. I tried to keep my attention focused on the seminary class I had traveled so far to take, but it was an effort.

I imagine that much of the next two months will be like that: trying to stay focused on the task at hand, trying not to be overwhelmed by all that is still left to do. Of all the things that I thought might disrupt my jam-packed schedule, I did not think it would be the remnants of a hurricane blowing through the North Carolina mountains!

Saturday, October 19, 2024

Tech Weariness

I decided to do the tech things before the writing things this morning:  getting essays graded for my online classes, getting material submitted for seminary classes.  When I return to North Carolina tomorrow, I won't have in-home internet.  My smart phone can function as a hotspot, but this is the week I discovered that unlimited data doesn't mean a) unlimited data or b) unlimited hotspot.

So, once again, I spent time on the phone with Spectrum, my internet, home phone, and cell phone provider.  I have requested unlimited hot spot use, in light of the fact that Spectrum hasn't restored my internet.  The very nice customer service person put in a help ticket.  Will it work?  I don't know.

That's why I decided to do the tech things this morning.  At some point soon, I'll write about the whole onground intensive week.  But not this morning.  I am weary:  because of grading, because of the need to work ahead, because it's an intensive week, not a week for relaxing.

I'm trying not to feel stressed about all the work that needs to be done in the coming weeks.  Most of the time, I'm successful.  Of all the things that I thought might make my jam-packed schedule difficult this term, having a hurricane in the mountains of North Carolina was not one of those things.

And yes, I see the life lesson here.

Friday, October 18, 2024

Thinking about health on the Feast Day of Saint Luke

On October 18, we celebrate the life of St. Luke, an evangelist and a doctor, or perhaps a healer would be a more accurate way of thinking about the ancient approach to medical care.  But St. Luke was so much more: he’s also the patron saint of artists, students, and butchers. He’s given credit as one of the founders of iconography. And of course, he was a writer--both of one of the Gospels and the book of Acts. As we think about the life of St. Luke, let us use his life as a guide for how we can bring ourselves back to health and wholeness.


The feast day of St. Luke offers us a reason to evaluate our own health—why wait until the more traditional time of the new year like the start of a new year? Using St. Luke as our inspiration, let’s think about the ways we can promote health of all kinds.

Do we need to schedule some check-ups? October is perhaps most famous for breast cancer awareness month, but there are other doctors that many of us should see on a regular basis. For example, if you get a lot of sun exposure, or if you live in southern states, you should get a baseline check up from your dermatologist. If we've put off medical care, this feast day is a good opportunity to think about how to get that health care safely.  

We could think about what vaccines and booster shots we need.  We might think about flu shots and Covid boosters, but I also encourage us to get a shingles vaccine the first moment we're eligible.  There are hepatitis vaccines that will protect our livers from this disease which is so easily transmissible. 

Many of us don’t need to visit a doctor to find out what we can do to promote better health for ourselves. We can eat more fruits and vegetables. We can drink less alcohol. We can get more sleep. We can exercise and stretch more.

Maybe we need to look to our mental or spiritual health. If so, Luke can show us the way again.

Luke is famous as the writer of the Gospel of Luke and Acts, but it’s important to realize that he likely didn’t see himself as writing straight history. He was maintaining a record of amazing events that showed evidence of God’s salvation.

It’s far too easy to ignore evidence of God’s presence in the world. We get bogged down in our own disappointments and our deeper depressions. But we could follow the example of Luke and write down events that we see in our own lives and the life of our churches that remind us of God’s grace. Even if it’s a practice as simple as a gratitude journal where each day we write down several things for which we’re grateful, we can write our way back to right thinking.

As we think about St. Luke, we can look for ways to deepen our spiritual health. In popular imagination, Luke gets credit for creating the first icon of the Virgin Mary. Maybe it’s time for us to try something new.

We could experiment with the visual arts to see how they could enrich our spiritual health. We might choose something historical and traditional, like iconography. Or we might decide that we want to experiment with something that requires less concentration and training. Maybe we want to create a collage of images that remind us of God’s abundance. Maybe we want to meditate on images, like icons, like photographs, that call us to healthy living.

St. Luke knew that there are many paths to health of all sorts. Now, on his feast day, let us resolve to spend the coming year following his example and restoring our lives to a place of better health.