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Sometimes, late at night when sleep escapes me and when my eyes tire of reading, I slip out to the living room and turn on the television. There, in the wee hours of the morning, I find familiar friends from decades ago. Old episodes of MASH, Gomer Pyle, and Andy Griffith bring back memories of …

This morning I woke up at 4:00 a.m. After an hour of tossing this way and that, I pummeled my pillow one last time and gave up trying to go back to sleep. I felt like a grouchy bear coming out of hibernation. I reasoned I could at least use this early hour to pray …

Thwunk! The curious grey squirrel investigating our roof fell into the depths of our chimney. I heard the desperate scrabble of frantic paws seeking escape. Yet when I opened the chimney damper, our guest refused to escape. The squirrel cowered in darkness and cold rather than trust my offer of freedom. If he continued to …

When my daughter flew to Florida for a week of work on NASA’s solar probe (parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu), my husband and I went to Maryland to help out with the grandchildren. Three young boys can exhaust two old grandparents, but we had a lot of fun with trips to the library, restaurant, community center, and pool, plus …

Spring is arriving late in the northeast this year. As our local weatherman said halfway through April, “Today is tax day and Old Man Winter has filed for an extension!” How appropriate that I have been studying the book of Ruth and the story of how this brave young woman went out to glean during …

A frigid wind is blowing outside. It’s a good day to stay indoors and meditate on John 3:8: “Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” As I look out my window and …

Watch out! I am grouchy today. Normally I don’t mind doing my daily exercises and walking for recovery from my spinal surgery, but today I had to force myself to do these. On ordinary days, I don’t mind fixing meals and doing laundry, but today I found them exhausting. I even got annoyed waiting five …

My friend Bill is undergoing surgery today to remove a cancerous growth. He has struggled with cancer for years and this is just one more round in an on-going battle. In John’s gospel, chapter 5, Jesus meets a man who has been struggling with health problems for 38 years. They meet at the side of …