a radio was on.

Mysterion, is a word (μυστήριον)  which does not sound in the modern English sense of mystery, as in something to be solved, an ending or a motive which will be revealed, as in Sherlock Holmes, or Agatha Christie, or Ruth Ware.  Which is mixing apples and oranges, I know, but if I said Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, would my youngish readers make the connection to the television series Bones?  Of course, witness the flurry of intense interest in the recent stories about Amelia Earhart--we are keen to have these mysteries solved, but we cleave to the idea of an unsolved mystery.  Easteār Island.  The five thousand blackbirds that threw themselves into building and poles, dying on New Year's Eve in 2010 in Arkansas.  Still these mysteries imply a solution, as yet undetermined, but still, determinable. Mysterion is inherently mystical.  In the Biblical Greek, mysterion means "that which awaits disclosure or interpretation." It's not meant to be solved,...

Mysterion, is a word (μυστήριον)  which does not sound in the modern English sense of mystery, as in something to be solved, an ending or a motive which will be revealed, as in Sherlock Holmes, or Agatha Christie, or Ruth Ware.  Which is mixing apples and oranges, I know, but if I said Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, would my youngish readers make the connection to the television series Bones?  Of course, witness the flurry of intense interest in the recent stories about Amelia Earhart--we are keen to have these mysteries solved, but we cleave to the idea of an unsolved mystery.  Easteār Island.  The five thousand blackbirds that threw themselves into building and poles, dying on New Year's Eve in 2010 in Arkansas.  Still these mysteries imply a solution, as yet undetermined, but still, determinable. Mysterion is inherently mystical.  In the Biblical Greek, mysterion means "that which awaits disclosure or interpretation." It's not meant to be so...

Your wound is probably not your fault, but your healing is your responsibility. Aphorisms are ancient--a short(ish) and sweet observation meant to contain a general truth.  Words to live by, perhaps.  The stuff of Facebook.  That's where I found the aphorism that starts this post. I am tempted to take apart the first sentence--it's too stark for me, belies the way we live in community, in families, in the world.  We are wounded, yet sometimes we seek woundedness, in ourselves, in others, maybe because of the child who still lives within us, stirring, disappointed, wounded herself.  Sometimes we are wounded because we hurt first.  Sometimes we are wounded on bright, beautiful days, with unreal blue skies, and sometimes the ocean lulls us to sleep, and we are wounded then, in the darkness, suddenly awake with a gasp, alone.  Healing is my responsibility alone--that too feels like a tremendous responsibility.  And yet, we have some power over healing...

Your wound is probably not your fault, but your healing is your responsibility. Aphorisms are ancient--a short(ish) and sweet observation meant to contain a general truth.  Words to live by, perhaps.  The stuff of Facebook.  That's where I found the aphorism that starts this post. I am tempted to take apart the first sentence--it's too stark for me, belies the way we live in community, in families, in the world.  We are wounded, yet sometimes we seek woundedness, in ourselves, in others, maybe because of the child who still lives within us, stirring, disappointed, wounded herself.  Sometimes we are wounded because we hurt first.  Sometimes we are wounded on bright, beautiful days, with unreal blue skies, and sometimes the ocean lulls us to sleep, and we are wounded then, in the darkness, suddenly awake with a gasp, alone.  Healing is my responsibility alone--that too feels like a tremendous responsibility.  And yet, we have some power over h...

You probably already know that Margaret Atwood maintains that all of the things that happen in The Handmaid's Tale have already happened, somewhere, or are things we are trying to do, or making progress towards.  She was known to carry around newspaper clippings (recall, if you dare, the time before the internet, search engines, and smart phones.  Just the other day I remembered I had forgotten that we used to call Time and Temperature--a phone number that let us know what time it was and, in my case, whether it was warm enough to go to the pool.  Alone, by the way.).  Genital mutilation? Check.  Killing people because they are gay (well, not sure if that happened in the book or the series).  Check.  Controlling bodies, especially women's bodies--check is an insufficient word for what is happening right now. I was thinking about Margaret Atwood because I haven't watched the third season of the Hulu series.  I know the series has moved past the nov...

You probably already know that Margaret Atwood maintains that all of the things that happen in The Handmaid's Tale have already happened, somewhere, or are things we are trying to do, or making progress towards.  She was known to carry around newspaper clippings (recall, if you dare, the time before the internet, search engines, and smart phones.  Just the other day I remembered I had forgotten that we used to call Time and Temperature--a phone number that let us know what time it was and, in my case, whether it was warm enough to go to the pool.  Alone, by the way.).  Genital mutilation? Check.  Killing people because they are gay (well, not sure if that happened in the book or the series).  Check.  Controlling bodies, especially women's bodies--check is an insufficient word for what is happening right now. I was thinking about Margaret Atwood because I haven't watched the third season of the Hulu series.  I know the series has moved past the no...

These nights the Goldendoodle named Sebastian, Sebby is what we call him, often sleeps next to my bed. I have a dog bed there for him, and sometimes he curls up sweetly in it, a c-shape of golden fluff, and sometimes he sleeps in-between the dog bed and my bed, where there isn't much room, so that I have to scoot to the end of the bed to get up in the middle of the night if one of the boys cries out.  This companionable sleep arrangement is new, Sebby only recently having been sprung from the puppy crate he slept in for the first year-and-a-half of his time with us.  This morning Elijah came into the room, despondent that the weekend was over, and he curled up with the dog. The crate is still up in the office, and Sebby often bends his head and goes back into it if I am working on the computer.  He's there right now. Of course the wonder of dogs is how sure their love for us can be.  And the tragedy of dogs is that their lifetimes are contained within ours--they all ...