Monthly Archives: April 2019

April 29 – campus goodbyes after exams

Monday, April 29, 2019 “Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.” Last year in early March, a friend emailed me some lines from Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Kindness.”  She  connects … Continue reading

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April 26 – Joy Harjo won the 2019 Jackson Poetry Prize

Friday, April 26, “. . . they begin in the ear and the eye, they go on to live and hum inside the body . . . ” Robin Bradford,  playwrite friend from San Francisco sent me word of Joy’s … Continue reading

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April 22 – days that look like Spring should feel – Gerard Manley Hopkins, s.j. “The Windhover”

A glimpse of spring from three years ago   —- >  leaves and flowers waking up Posted Monday, April 18, 2016: “Must be spring.  I checked Weather.com’s allergy tracker this morning, a respiratory spring ritual for me and for many others. … Continue reading

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Good Friday and Refugees

Good Friday, 2019 Pope Francis, July 2013 on the island of Lampedusa spoke these words to a world just getting used to him as a new world figure. Francis chose this place of horrors at sea to call attention to … Continue reading

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April 17 mid-day in Holy Week – – Rumi, Sufi mystic 1207 – 1273

Wednesday,  April 17, 2019 “Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows . . . ” In traditional Catholic faith practice, Holy Week can take a lot of living up to.  The intimate closeness of the Christian … Continue reading

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April 15 – Monday of Holy week – remembering Connie de Biase, sj ( † Feb 10, 2017, c. 6:15 pm)

Monday April 15, 2019 – “a mutual commitment to noticing” Over 4 decades of kinship, Connie de Biase and I shared a mutual commitment to noticing.   Now that she’s left us,  I miss her most on Saturday mornings when driving … Continue reading

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April 12 – “is it harder to stand still in a place of grief or a place of joy”

Friday, April 12, 2019 “the singing robes fly onto your body and cling there silkily, You step out on the rope and move unfalteringly across it . . . ” Is it harder to stand still in a place of … Continue reading

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April 10 – three voices for a time of high tension, fear, and anger — a prophet, a pope, a poet

Wednesday, April 10, 2019 “If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech” . . . Isaiah 58 Pre-note: today’s post is longer than ordinary, and quotes 3 authors, the prophet Isaiah, Pope Francis, and the muslim … Continue reading

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April 8 – David Grubin introduced Jane Kenyon in a morning email Feb 22, 2017

Monday, April 8, 2019 “There’s just no accounting for happiness”   I’d not met Jane Kenyon until David Grubin caught my attention with her “Happiness” in an email this morning.   Kenyon gets it about understated and playful joy emerging from … Continue reading

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Friday, April 5, Tigers’ home opening day – – – plus 1

Friday morning Pre-note:   We sent this post yesterday at 11:21 a.m. as you will see it just below.  It didn’t go through despite multiple tries.  We could not engineer a fix until late last night.  In the meantime, the Tigers, … Continue reading

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