You don't have to have snow to learn a few things in the winter season, but sometimes it crystalizes the lessons. There are lessons to be learned in the quiet snowfall, the ice crystals, and warming your toes by the fire. Here are a few of mine this winter - just three. Icicles are formed with patience and time. When I saw the icicles, I felt like a kid again. I wanted to sit at the window and watch them form against a clear, cold sky. Drip, drip, drip. They were three, four, even five feet long, hanging in icy Continue Reading

He found her in the front row, a small girl leaning shy on her Daddy's arm. In the slanting rays of late summer when the hydrangeas grow tall and leggy, the maestro played keys in a tiny white chapel. Maybe she would come to the piano and help him play a song? He showed her what he practices everyday and they played it together. He looked only at her and she at him. We knew we were witnessing something all too rare - a hushed and simple kindness, attention to the small. This winter I ran into her Daddy and Continue Reading

Last year, my word for 2018 was a quote from D. L. Mayfield, "Here's to a 2018 full of digging deep(er) inner wells." It was more than one word. It fit me perfectly. And I didn't find it until January 18. So you've got time. This space between Christmas and New Years is when eveyone seems to be finding their one word for the coming year. Actually, this time we're in is the 12 Days of Christmas or Christmastide, and it extends all the way to Epiphany when the Magi found Jesus under his star. Did you Continue Reading

What do you think of when someone asks the question, "Are you ready for Christmas?"? I can tell you the lights are up on our eaves. We went to the Christmas tree farm and cut down a beautiful Turkish Fir, the one with sky blue on the underside of the needles. It twinkles in the corner of our Gathering Room waiting for a star topper. My Christmas cards are ordered, imprinted with “Merriest Christmas, love the Conlins”. Sometimes, I think I'm read when I set out my Nativity. But none of that means I am ready for Christmas. Continue Reading