Finding Your Soul by David Anderson
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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…
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Suffer The Little Children
It’s always a revelation when it finally dawns on parents that most of what they love about their children, and most everything that drives them crazy, is merely a genetic reincarnation of themselves. We adore the little dimple we share, and swell with pride when they show the same early inclination to art or music.…
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Red, Wise & Blue
I was raised in a politically/religiously balanced home. My father was deeply engaged in politics, and my mother had only one thing to say on the matter: “Politics stinks to high heaven.” For her, it was a distraction from the ultimate concern of life, which was faith in God. Politics concerned itself with the things…
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A Shining Palace Built Upon the Sand
Sitting on a beach in Nova Scotia, watching kids play in the sand, I’m remembering a modern parable that Harold Kushner tells in his book, When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough. “I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand. They were…
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Proud Flesh
It was a small procedure, but even “minor” surgery requires general anesthesia, intubation, and signing a form that says if you die in there it’s not like they didn’t warn you. I walked into the OR in my johnny coat, an IV dripping in my arm, and there before me was a narrow operating table…
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All You Need Is . . . Emptiness
Just a few days ago I got an $800 repair bill on our junker car (mice had made a nest in the air ducts and gotten caught in the blower fan, yuck). That was just after the expert stood in my front lawn and told me I needed a new septic system. Money is one…
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Speaking Episcopalian with a Baptist Accent
Long, long ago I studied French in grad school. It was strictly a “language requirement.” In class, I never had to speak a word of it. All I learned to do was translate French into English. Which has meant over the years that I am pretty good at reading road signs and menus, and very…
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A Clematis and A Lesson in Patience
“Come, look!” I call to my wife. It is a single, pink clematis flower. No big deal, except that I had planted that clematis three years ago and it never wanted to grow. So the next year I planted another clematis next to it, and the two together withered, no matter how much I watered…
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The Perfect Day
“There are people with cancer and people in prisons experiencing happinesseven under those conditions. So, why not you?” -Anthony DeMello No one likes cleaning toilets. It’s the kind of chore that, if we’re able, we get other people to do. That’s the remarkable force behind the new movie, “Perfect Days,” where we meet Hirayama, who…