Being a member of CMC for just about 3 years now, I have really enjoyed reading the stories that everyone has been sharing on the ‘Daily Connector.’ I have felt like I have gotten to know many of you so much better and in a more intimate way than is typical. My previous ‘Connector’ entry was in mid-March as the stay-at-home orders and the global pandemic was beginning to hit home. We had been self-quarantining then after my wife Sally got back from a trip visiting her sister in South Carolina. I mentioned puzzles and am happy to report that the 1,000 piece Italian...
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This picture is of a piece of art that has always moved me. It is a statue commissioned by Henry Adams for his wife Clover's grave. Augustus St. Gaudens created it. I recently learned that Adams advised Saint-Gaudens to contemplate iconic images from Buddhist devotional art. One such subject, Guan Yin, the Bodhisattva of compassion, is frequently depicted as a seated figure draped in cloth.
Compassion, as the...
Not long ago I had the occasion to write the Editor’s Notes for River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative, the creative nonfiction journal a colleague and I have edited since 1999. I wrote on April 22, but knew the production and printing typical for these sorts of journals would mean my notes would not appear for some six months. I found myself consumed by the Covid-19 crisis that April morning. It seemed impossible to ignore it. After all, we writers want to write about what matters, and this matters very, very much. But I could hardly imagine what to write. What...
Last Thursday I attended a webinar organized by Faith in Public Life Ohio called “Counteracting Anti-Semitism and Dangerous Narratives in the Time of COVID-19.” The call included several rabbi friends from the Columbus area with whom we partner in BREAD. After the call I had an email exchange with Rabbi Rick Kellner. His congregation, Beth Tikvah, is just up the road from where we live. I asked him how rising antisemitism has impacted the congregation. With his permission, I share...
Listening to self-care techniques so much recently, I challenged myself to listen. It seemed there were many broken threads from things I used to do – face-to-face visits with neighbors and friends, walks on the beach seeing new turtle nesting sites, eating out. I was feeling frazzled and frayed.
My work with Peace by Piece (PxP), our Covenant Mennonite Fellowship comforter-making group (and little cousin to Piecemakers), was weighing on me. I had the joy of having stands and sticks – and no one to help put fabrics in the frame!
So I examined the tapestry of my life,...