Forty to one. That’s the ratio of sap to maple syrup in the long, slow process of creating the amber sweetness my family used to boil and bottle every spring. It’s a ratio that tells you something about the time and determination required to make syrup, but gives no hint of the longer arc of […]
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Three years ago this week, David and I retreated to the north shore of Lake Superior in early March. It was his spring break and we’d decided to buck the trend of going south, instead embracing the last remnants of winter by bundling up for a few blue-sky days of subzero sunshine. Outside our window, […]
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It is not a far drive from the Cities, but the stars at night will tell you it is far enough — to gain a new view, to see distant light not always apparent at home, to hear the gifts carried by silence. The Christine Center, where I was recently on retreat, welcomes all visitors with […]
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As I write this, the snow is swirling outside my window so fully I can’t see the pine trees just 20 feet away. It brings to mind an extraordinary and terrifying passage in a favorite novel, Driftless, by David Rhodes. The scene takes place in the winter on a Wisconsin farm, where Graham and Cora […]
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Earth but cloaks our heaven, Giovanni Giocondo wrote on a Christmas Eve almost 500 years ago. By which I understand him to be saying that the holy glimmers everywhere around us and within us, if we would but look beneath the coverings that conceal it. I beseech you to look, he says and continues: We, judging […]
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The table is set. Flowers arranged and candles burning. The house fragrant with food cooking since morning. Guests arriving with dishes that jostle for space, first in the oven, then on the table. Gathering for the meal, we’ll say grace. But what will we say? Every year, the question rises – what to say thanks […]
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“Every moment happens twice, inside and outside, and they are very different histories.” Zadie Smith Decades ago, when I was studying the who-what-when-where-why’s of journalism, we used to talk about getting the “inside story.” By this we meant the real story told by primary sources – people who experienced or witnessed the events first-hand. Today […]
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