Photo by Frank McKenna on Unsplash Vonnegut gave us poor Billy Pilgrim for a reason We know a lot of stuff. And there’s so much more stuff, continuously generated, some of it brilliant, some of it noise. We’re living in a zettabyte era (a zettabyte equals 1 sextillion bytes or 1000 exabytes; an exabyte is 1 billion […]
Month: October 2019
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Tending to Social Justice as a Garden
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash Community love takes patience, persistence, and long-term perspective Despite pollen, I love spring. Our little house sits on a small yard, almost no grass. The rock-lined paths and mulched areas already overtaken by weeds, sprouting acorns, and creeping vines. Today I decided to pull up what I can, and to […]
Photo by Ashton Bingham on Unsplash Turning disappointment into the story you’ll want to live When a toddler squeals, Do it again!, she’s joyfully learning through repetition. When she’s six years old and yells, Do-over!, she either wants to prove that she can do what she wasn’t able to demonstrate moments before, or to argue that the […]
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What We Will Do To Belong
Photo by Jovi Waqa on Unsplash Status, Salvation, and Swastikas: Indoctrination is a group thing I finally found the magazine Annette gave me last month. Annette is one of seven Clemson “sisters” I met through a professional women’s organization in 1989. All eight of us were plenty busy running businesses, careers and families, but we made the […]
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The Cancer of Privileged Expectations
Photo by Pixabay How to kill delusions of getting our way while keeping hope alive “Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.” — Margaret Mitchell Everyone has their blind spots. Blame nature, nurture, hard-to-break habits. One of my weaknesses is that I conflate hope and expectation. Just because I really want something and work hard to […]
Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash Ellen’s coming out about George started something worth wrestling with The word friend has become really fuzzy. Way before Ellen’s video about being friends with George W. Bush. Yet, strangely, all the social media backlash has brought two questions into focus: What is a friend versus being friendly? Must we […]
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Lorde Help Us
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash Brandt Jean’s call for forgiveness set off a few alarms. We should listen. Consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit.” — Audre Lorde Brandt Jean, brother of 26-year-old Botham Jean who was shot dead in his own apartment, extended nothing less than amazing grace to […]
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Looking Back to a Kinder Future
Photo by Jonathan Borba from Pexels Vonnegut gave us more than an anti-war book; he gave us safe passage to our former selves It didn’t work out well for Lot’s wife. As you might recall, she was warned not to look back at the Almighty’s wrath. “But she did look back, and I love her for that, […]
Jodi Barnes 