Finding Your Soul by David Anderson
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When The Unexpected Happens
“David, come—it’s something urgent!” I am at the woodshed, stacking logs in my wheelbarrow, when I hear Pam calling from the house. I am hurrying, but it’s a long way back. All the mind needs is a few seconds to go a thousand crazy places. The kitchen faucet has broken off and water is gushing…
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Light As A Feather
Birthdays, as I was reminded a few days ago, are weigh stations. After one more cycle, it’s good to weigh yourself—not your physical poundage but your spiritual weight. The point is to be a little lighter this time around. Each year we can put our lives on the eternal scales and see if we’re losing,…
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To Find Eternity In A Recycling Bin
As I lifted the lid of the big bin behind the garage and dumped in the week’s recycling, four words came back to me. I had read them just this morning: “Eternity is right now.” The rattling and clattering of the falling bottles and cans startled me, and, unaccountably, I thought, Right now? Right while…
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Close Encounters of the Simplest Kind
We don’t normally sit on the deck for Centering Prayer, but this morning was off schedule and it’s where we ended up. After the reading we sat still. Maybe five minutes into the silence I saw a blur on the far edge of the low table in front of me. In a flash I heard…
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Leaving Your Job, Finding Your Soul
When people find out you’re newly retired they often ask how you like it. I’ve tried to be honest and tell people it was hard for me. I thought that just because I knew all the pitfalls of over-identifying with your job—and then losing that total identity—I wouldn’t have to fall in that pit. But…
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Meditation Upon a Leaky Roof
It’s wet, she says. Why is the carpet all wet here? We have just gotten out of bed, and Pam is standing by the door to our bedroom. I go over and run my hand over the carpet. Soaked. I look up to see where the water is coming from. The ceiling looks perfect. I…
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Not Sure Prayer Works? Pray Anyway.
I’ve been praying for a young girl. She’s battling a rare disease, and it’s gone on for month and months. I keep praying, and yet I often wonder about praying for others—“intercession,” in the classic types of prayer. At some point I let go of prayer as telling God stuff, asking God for things, getting…
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The Passionate Center
I am surely an Anglican because I am hopelessly in love with the via media, the “middle way” for which we Anglican/Episcopalians are either famous or infamous. I know the pitfalls of taking the middle road—spinelessness and timidity. As Yeats put it, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”…
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My Evil Eye
Last week I visited the Pittsburgh Zoo with Pam and our two grandchildren. We came midafternoon, and the zoo closed at 5:30, so after buying our tickets—which weren’t cheap—we decided to hop on the tram instead of walking. Nope. Not without a ticket. We go to the ticket counter—it’s five bucks apiece. That’s twenty dollars…