While February is known as the month of love, I think less about romance and more about the love of friends. If anything, it has been the love of my friends that has supported my nearly 40 years of love with my husband, Gary. We live in an age of increasing isolation, losing the deep social capital that once wove our communities together. I count it a privilege in 2025 to live in the same…
2 CommentsTag: personal growth
It must have been during my first year at the Naval Academy. I don’t recall my specific offenses—perhaps I had failed to carry my weight, or maybe I’d dared to speak out. What I do remember was bemoaning the rough treatment of women, especially as it concerned me, to my father. He listened, of course. My father, a proud graduate of the Naval Academy Class of ’42, had been forged in a very different fire.…
1 CommentMany aspects of my Navy training were about preparing for the unexpected—fire drills, uniform inspections, and man overboard drills. Each one is designed to help those training in the Navy to respond quickly and efficiently when things go wrong. Just last week, while sitting along the Severn River, the sound of six short blasts on a ship’s whistle pulled me right back to those drills. The Man Overboard call. It all came flooding back—the urgency,…
1 CommentRevisionist History Podcast Collagen Powder The Person Called You book Suncatcher -Happy Things Mary’s Spiritual Direction Page
Leave a CommentAs we sat at the breakfast table on the last day of our eight-day silent retreat, the silence was now broken, and we had the opportunity to connect with each other before leaving. One of my fellow retreatants asked those of us sitting at the table, What’s the theory behind silence? She was self-admittingly brand new to this idea, and it was such a heartfelt and honest question. One person explained that silence allowed one to hear…
1 CommentEvery Saturday, we were out in the yard. My father would make his work list on a yellow legal pad, listing the chores and the work party leaders—the elder siblings included myself and my next-in-line brother Tom. Yard work entailed sweeping porches, picking up trash along our road, mowing lawns, pulling the grass out of the sidewalk cracks, and edging. But the one job that we all dreaded was weeding our rose beds, and weeding…
3 Comments