Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.

May we remember.
Not the images.
Not the pain.
Not the fear.
Not the fire.
Not the tears.
Not the anger.
Not the unknown others.
Not the threats.
Not the repercussions.
Not, all the gods that ever were or are, NOT the endless war.

Lift our hearts to that moment of blue-sky September ( Read more... )

Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.

I went for a walk this morning, even though it was six degrees outside and the snow-covered ground was hard frozen and unforgiving. Really unforgiving. With the scarf wrapped around my face to protect it, my glasses fogged up and froze over, and it was hard to see. I tripped over a ( Read more... )

Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.

Last October, about a month after I started attending UUCC, there was a new member class held one Saturday morning. I attended that class, with interest, and learned a lot about Unitarian Universalism and the community at UUCC. I was already pretty sold on the whole concept, but the ( Read more... )

Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.

Earlier this summer, I went back to the University of Maryland at College Park to talk with an English department advisor about finally finishing my degree. (You may remember I had a fit of nostalgia at the time.) And in the spring I’d talked to someone in the College of Arts and ( Read more... )

Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.

When I was in the first grade, my Mom decided to make me a Halloween costume. Like, a hand-sewn one, from a pattern. My brief forays into Halloween prior to that year had been the plastic-mask-and-pajamas type deals you got at the drug store.

I’m not sure why my mother decided to do ( Read more... )

Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.

It’s been another year, and I was thinking it would be a good time to share another Dad story. I got kind of caught up inside my own brain for a while, thinking of recent changes in my life, the way Dad’s memory influences me and affects me still. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking ( Read more... )

Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.

Thinking back, I’m not sure when it was - winter or summer, spring or fall. Logic and the process of elimination lead me to believe it was probably sometime in 1989. I didn’t have a phone in my room but there was one in the next room over that was basically mine. It was a cheap ( Read more... )

Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.

My first copy of Lifes Rich Pageant was a cassette copy from my brother’s vinyl. There was a skip on the record during “These Days,” and to this day when I listen to that song there’s a part of me that waits for that little stutter. It’s not there, as I now listen to a ripped MP3 ( Read more... )

Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.

This weekend I went on retreat at a Trappist monastery in Berryville, VA. Never having done such a thing before, I was curious, filled mostly with interested anticipation but with a little trepidation. Would I go crazy, I wondered, with nearly 48 hours off the grid entirely, not ( Read more... )

Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.

Last night was my 20th high school reunion. It was a nice night - the venue was lovely, there were a lot of people there I hadn’t seen in, well, 20 years, the food was good. Overall I went into the event with almost no expectations, unsure who I would see or who I would talk to, who ( Read more... )