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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We are in a sacred time. Whether celebrating Passover or preparing for Easter or praising the abundance of birdsong and buds bursting out everywhere, we are all in a sacred time marked by stories of rising and uprising, of liberation and new life, of hope and relief from tyranny, suffering and dormancy. Powerful transformative stories […]
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The grass is greening here in the upper Midwest, the emerald blades of daffodil leaves are emerging from the dirt and the migratory birds are returning. Even though flakes of snow are tumbling past my window as I write this, in recent days we have begun sleeping with a window open in our house and […]
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I know it is only the middle of January, not yet even the mid-point between winter solstice and spring equinox when we watch the ground hog for signs of how much longer we must endure winter’s chill. And still, yesterday, as we emerged from the polar vortex and watched the temperature rise, first above zero, […]
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