When I have died, lay me here.
I won’t care how, handed down 
into the rocky earth to return to dust,
or trickled through your fingers, ashes to ashes.
I won’t know,
but you will care, and you will know,
and your hands will remember
that in this place,
this place I love,
all the glo…

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Sunset over the Abajos this evening. Read full post »

 

1. Your main trait: Determination. 

2. The quality you like best in a man: Decency.

3. The quality you like best in a woman: Courage. 

4. Your main flaw:  Nasty, stupid people irritate me to the point of making me lose my composure, when I want to be icily di… Read full post »

Let’s start this off with an understanding: I am not an acquisitive person. I’m still using the pots and pans I bought when I moved into my first college apartment. I have one purse, which I will replace, when it wears out in 10 years or so, with one more.… Read full post »

This is our Christmas tree. Ok, this is actually our daughter Pippa Kate and her little dog Toto Olive beside the tree, because I am not in the habit of photographing my Christmas tree, but that's beside the point.

If you look, you can see part of a pile of gifts under the… Read full post »

 

Today is Reformation Sunday, a fact that means little to any here but a few churchgoing Protestants of the Calvinist tradition. It’s not a holy day, exactly, but it requires some observance. In our congregation, tradition (that bugaboo of the Reformers) dictates that we invite a b… Read full post »

 (Photo courtesy of Microsoft Dangerous Creatures wallpaper)

Last night we shared dinner with good friends in the mountain town:  simple food, cheap wine, lots of laughter as we watched the sun set over the golden landscape to the west.

We were laughing, mostly, about a story we&rsq… Read full post »

 Friends: I had intertwined this with music, but OS won't let me embed today — not surprising considering all else that we've lost.  So, I give you a free bird photo (complete with really bad pun, in honor of really bad service at OS) and ask you to supply your own… Read full post »

On the soft early mornings of summer, my husband and I like to hike through a nearby natural area. We hop out of the bed we love so much in the wintertime, toss on shorts, t-shirts and Tevas, grab the dog leash off the doorknob, and we’re off: a little more… Read full post »

 

Do I fear Armageddon? All the time, although probably not like you imagine.

I was a child in the 1960s, raised on civil defense drills and assurances of mutual destruction. I don't remember whether I really believed the Soviet Union  was the Evil Empire. I don't remember whether… Read full post »

Homeless people have terrible feet.

Toward the end of a long winter — it’s not over yet; we’re supposed to wake up Easter morning to 2 feet of snow — everybody’s feet show signs of neglect, because who’s going to pay for pedicure to hide inside the LLBean boots? O… Read full post »

 The yellow bird of happiness — because one size doesn't fit all

Why am I not single?

It's not because I'm less independent than you are. It's not because I don't state my opinions, and it's certainly not because my opinions always match those of my partner. (You probably canno… Read full post »

 

Like several other posters here, I grew up with guns. My father was a sportsman; when he died last summer there were perhaps 20 sporting guns to divvy up, plus some assorted others. I have, locked up, a .22 Colt Woodsman pistol, a .22 Ruger Bearcat revolver, a Browning… Read full post »

 

My favorite piece of non-serious art, a print by Peggy Corpeny, possibly because if I had any sense, I'd run away. (I have a favorite piece of serious art too, but I've never figured out how to photograph it without a flare somewhere on the glass. You'll have to come

… Read full post »

 This is what cold looks like.

 This is our first Christmas without my Dad, and unfortunately, Mom's neediest times have collided with my busiest. Last night, we invited Mom over to have dinner and decorate the tree, just so she wouldn't be home alone.

The first thing she said was… Read full post »

High in the Rockies, we have had ... rain.

 Saturday it snowed all day, several feet worth, and then, when darkness fell, the rain started. Several feet of snow were reduced to 18 inches of the heaviest slush I have ever seen. Sunday it snowed all day, and then when… Read full post »

This is our world right now: dark, snowy, cold, perfectly beautiful.

The nights between now and Christmas are the longest nights of the year. Looking at the weather forecast, it doesn’t appear we’ll have many starry nights.

If we do, on Monday night, we may have the… Read full post »

It was the pumpkin-pie breath breath that woke me up.

Our tiny mountain house has a very tiny bedroom, much tinier than the tiny living room, and the two share a wall furnace. That means the bedroom is at least 20 degrees warmer than the rest of the house, including the… Read full post »

 

Last week, we took my father's remains home to Kansas, to the town where he had grown up, where his great-grandparents had homesteaded, and where I was raised as well.

When the children of Israel, exiled in Babylon, longed for their homeland, the prophet Jeremiah told them that God had… Read full post »

 This was the backlit view from the front porch of my little mountain house yesterday afternoon, looking toward "downtown." (Yes, that's pretty much all of it.)

 And this was the view looking up the same street.

 

Life is really, really good. Remind me of that over the… Read full post »

I don't approve of burning holy books. Neither do I  approve of burning people, nor bombing them, stoning them, starving them or marginalizing them because they don't believe the way I do. 

But  we ought to think very carefully about what David Petraeus has said before we start cheerin… Read full post »

 

_{The room formerly known as my sleeping porch}

First, some basic facts must be understood. 

1) We live in an old house.

2) When we moved in, it needed some remodeling.

3) Over the years, needy kids always seemed more important.

4) Therefore, we raised all our children — a… Read full post »

Some local kids went away when the school year ended, but a different batch arrived. The town was an energy town and employment there favored men, although it didn’t support marriage well. While they had a core of civilization — schools, churches, hospitals — oil and gas towns were… Read full post »

This is a companion piece to, although in no way a refutation of, Mary T. Kelly's, "Why are the Gores divorcing?" I don't know why the Gores are divorcing. I wish them well.

Coincidentally, and ironically, I spent the afternoon with a friend and parishioner who lost her husband to… Read full post »