If anyone has read the LemmonDrops blog but hasn't checked in lately, this news will be sad and poignant. The Pioneer Press' Molly Millett wrote this story last week: Read story here
Emilie asked to meet me for lunch some years back when I was still at the Pioneer Press. She was a reporter at the Catholic Spirit at the time and said she wanted to learn what she could about daily newspaper journalism.
As it turned out, through Emilie's courageous testimonial blog for these past several months, I learned far more from her.
As the old year turns to the new, peace.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Something Unexpected
Children will play in the snow,
and reluctantly come in when gently prodded
by those who will have prepared
for them
a hot meal.
A long conversation
that languishes over dessert and shared
stories will carry on until the fire burns down
to red embers in the fireplace.
Their beds will be warm.
Those with no children will know, too,
the sounds of laughter, the joy of a meal
shared among those who care about their stories.
Who see to it they, too, will never be cold, not even in winter.
Not even in winter, when people gather
and gift each other with memories of Christmases
past, not even then will there be sadness,
or wistfulness,
or the remembering of anything other than
God’s visiting the common people in the middle of the night.
God being born, again and again, year after year,
day after day even,
God incarnate.
As a baby, sure, as a baby at first.
But as something unexpected
always.
Spring will follow, like morning after night,
streams trickling, then rivers gushing noisily.
We will get out of doors, and breathe in,
and remember what it’s like to run.
None shall be confined anymore.
None shall be lame.
Each of us will be resurrected
and live in gratitude.
As days lengthen and the nightfall recedes,
we will realize God has made good
on winter’s promise.
We lived in darkness, but now we have seen a great light.
We will see beauty, in old men resting their hands upon canes
as they sit on park benches
or perch around tables and share coffee and doughnuts.
In neighbors from Mexico, Laos or Iowa.
In cities that are clean.
In groups of teenagers walking down the street.
In storm clouds.
In the eyes of those who sit on our left and our right.
Trees will not die of Dutch elm disease.
Fish will not wash up on trash-littered beaches.
Greenhouses will nurture hyacinths and dahlias,
but the term will cease meaning for the trapping of noxious gases in our atmosphere.
The celestial sphere will regain its radiance,
a dome of awesome wonder,
stretching our imagination and our yearning
to heaven’s farthest reach.
Hot summer nights will not be filled
with the sound of husbands and wives arguing
behind open windows and closed doors.
Dark alleys will not invite fear,
for they will lead instead to curious bookshops and hidden cafes,
where people in cozy light will gab with strangers
about how the world somehow in all its complexity makes sense.
Their talk will linger on till morning and they once again
will have made it through the night
with no thought of ghosts underneath the bed.
War veterans will not worry where their next meal will come from,
not wonder under which bridge
to seek shelter.
We will stop making war veterans.
Grandmothers will need not long for the sound
of their distant daughter’s voice,
and grown brothers and sisters
will relish memories that no one else could possibly understand.
The imaginations of our childhoods will not be abandoned.
We will laugh quietly at the hubris of our “five-year plan”
and our latest diet
and the new leaf we intended to turn over,
but we will go easy on ourselves,
knowing God laughs, too,
when we become so sure of ourselves.
And less sure of God.
God who is there like wind and sky and leaves
falling every which way,
dripping like paint off trees,
dappling color in indiscriminate splotches.
God who speaks
as much as listens
and cries out for us to hear even when the roar
of doomsayers seems to drown out
the good word.
Knowing God is there,
we will not be afraid of silence.
~
We will not be afraid of autumn days.
We will marvel at the change of seasons
as an improbable gift of blessing. It will teach us to pay attention.
When our conversations move indoors
we will not talk of politics
but of how we might
be a community that helps each other.
We will not dream of peace but live in it.
We will believe the words when we hear them:
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners,”
especially those who are prisoner to illness of body or mind,
or abuse,
or poverty.
There will be no joblessness,
because we will recognize our God-given abilities
are just what the world needs,
and the world will see that, too.
When the snow returns it will give rest to our souls.
We will wipe our brows from summer’s heat and harvest’s toil
and put on parkas
and be amazed at how God has created us
to adapt to changing conditions.
It won’t be commercials
that call us to contemplate the question,
what should we get for Christmas this year?
It will be something that stirs us to remember
what we’ve always known,
that we’ve already received more than we could have dreamt up,
and that Christmas is really Thanksgiving
all dressed up with lights.
Christmas is also a prayer, that all this shall come to pass.
All that God intended, the new heaven, the new earth, born in Christ, born in peace, born in joy.
~
Even in winter, when people gather
and gift each other with memories of Christmases
past, even then will there be no sadness,
or wistfulness,
or the remembering of anything other than
God’s visiting the common people in the middle of the night.
God being born, again and again, year after year,
day after day even,
God incarnate.
As a baby, sure, as a baby at first.
But as something unexpected
always.
and reluctantly come in when gently prodded
by those who will have prepared
for them
a hot meal.
A long conversation
that languishes over dessert and shared
stories will carry on until the fire burns down
to red embers in the fireplace.
Their beds will be warm.
Those with no children will know, too,
the sounds of laughter, the joy of a meal
shared among those who care about their stories.
Who see to it they, too, will never be cold, not even in winter.
Not even in winter, when people gather
and gift each other with memories of Christmases
past, not even then will there be sadness,
or wistfulness,
or the remembering of anything other than
God’s visiting the common people in the middle of the night.
God being born, again and again, year after year,
day after day even,
God incarnate.
As a baby, sure, as a baby at first.
But as something unexpected
always.
Spring will follow, like morning after night,
streams trickling, then rivers gushing noisily.
We will get out of doors, and breathe in,
and remember what it’s like to run.
None shall be confined anymore.
None shall be lame.
Each of us will be resurrected
and live in gratitude.
As days lengthen and the nightfall recedes,
we will realize God has made good
on winter’s promise.
We lived in darkness, but now we have seen a great light.
We will see beauty, in old men resting their hands upon canes
as they sit on park benches
or perch around tables and share coffee and doughnuts.
In neighbors from Mexico, Laos or Iowa.
In cities that are clean.
In groups of teenagers walking down the street.
In storm clouds.
In the eyes of those who sit on our left and our right.
Trees will not die of Dutch elm disease.
Fish will not wash up on trash-littered beaches.
Greenhouses will nurture hyacinths and dahlias,
but the term will cease meaning for the trapping of noxious gases in our atmosphere.
The celestial sphere will regain its radiance,
a dome of awesome wonder,
stretching our imagination and our yearning
to heaven’s farthest reach.
Hot summer nights will not be filled
with the sound of husbands and wives arguing
behind open windows and closed doors.
Dark alleys will not invite fear,
for they will lead instead to curious bookshops and hidden cafes,
where people in cozy light will gab with strangers
about how the world somehow in all its complexity makes sense.
Their talk will linger on till morning and they once again
will have made it through the night
with no thought of ghosts underneath the bed.
War veterans will not worry where their next meal will come from,
not wonder under which bridge
to seek shelter.
We will stop making war veterans.
Grandmothers will need not long for the sound
of their distant daughter’s voice,
and grown brothers and sisters
will relish memories that no one else could possibly understand.
The imaginations of our childhoods will not be abandoned.
We will laugh quietly at the hubris of our “five-year plan”
and our latest diet
and the new leaf we intended to turn over,
but we will go easy on ourselves,
knowing God laughs, too,
when we become so sure of ourselves.
And less sure of God.
God who is there like wind and sky and leaves
falling every which way,
dripping like paint off trees,
dappling color in indiscriminate splotches.
God who speaks
as much as listens
and cries out for us to hear even when the roar
of doomsayers seems to drown out
the good word.
Knowing God is there,
we will not be afraid of silence.
~
We will not be afraid of autumn days.
We will marvel at the change of seasons
as an improbable gift of blessing. It will teach us to pay attention.
When our conversations move indoors
we will not talk of politics
but of how we might
be a community that helps each other.
We will not dream of peace but live in it.
We will believe the words when we hear them:
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners,”
especially those who are prisoner to illness of body or mind,
or abuse,
or poverty.
There will be no joblessness,
because we will recognize our God-given abilities
are just what the world needs,
and the world will see that, too.
When the snow returns it will give rest to our souls.
We will wipe our brows from summer’s heat and harvest’s toil
and put on parkas
and be amazed at how God has created us
to adapt to changing conditions.
It won’t be commercials
that call us to contemplate the question,
what should we get for Christmas this year?
It will be something that stirs us to remember
what we’ve always known,
that we’ve already received more than we could have dreamt up,
and that Christmas is really Thanksgiving
all dressed up with lights.
Christmas is also a prayer, that all this shall come to pass.
All that God intended, the new heaven, the new earth, born in Christ, born in peace, born in joy.
~
Even in winter, when people gather
and gift each other with memories of Christmases
past, even then will there be no sadness,
or wistfulness,
or the remembering of anything other than
God’s visiting the common people in the middle of the night.
God being born, again and again, year after year,
day after day even,
God incarnate.
As a baby, sure, as a baby at first.
But as something unexpected
always.
sps 12.13.08
Monday, December 1, 2008
Lake Delton: Fill-er-up
Remember the lake that vanished from central Wisconsin this summer?
It's coming back -- beginning this week, according to the Associated Press in this story.
Once again, it's only the economic impact that seems to make news. It remains a fascinating hydrogeographic event.
It's coming back -- beginning this week, according to the Associated Press in this story.
Once again, it's only the economic impact that seems to make news. It remains a fascinating hydrogeographic event.
Fortunately for her, she was wrong
A new biography of Michelle Obama details her years as a student at Princeton. The author (as quoted in this Chicago Sun-Times story) calls the conclusion of Obama's senior thesis "one of the most ironic sentences ever written." The sentence:Princeton "will likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a White cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant," Michelle Obama wrote.
Photo from Zimbio by Ethan Miller/Getty Images North America
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
What happy people do
Happy people spend a lot of time socializing, going to church and reading newspapers but they don’t spend a lot of time watching television, a new study finds.That's according to this New York Times story. Let's hear it for church and newspapers!
Something I did not know
Harrison Ford, Al Jarreau, Spencer Tracy and Dick Bennett all are alumni of Ripon College, a school of 1,000 students in east-central Wisconsin. Just something I came across while looking up something else.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
All in the family
Forty years later
Last night's enduring image will be the scene at Chicago's Grant Park awaiting Obama's arrival as president-elect. Quite the antithesis to Grant Park 40 years earlier (a moment in history caught audibly on the Chicago Transit Authority's first album*.)And in my relatively brief lifespan, Election '08 will join these other retrospections:
'68 c'mon, I was 8
'72 huge McGovern poster hanging on my bedroom wall
'76 almost shook Carter's hand when he visited my hometown
'80 a newsroom colleague asking me if I knew Spanish because the new president would send me to Nicaragua
'84 the native son (I was in St. Paul then) loses in a landslide
'88 writing letters to editor about the environment and vigorously debating my neighbor across the yard
'92 the shroud of iraq
'96 wow -- a two-term democrat
'00 staying up til 6 a.m. watching a blur of blue and red on TV
'04 the shroud of iraq
(* Prologue, August 29 1968, is the actual recording of the Democratic Convention in Chicago: black militants exhorting demonstrators: "God Give Us the Blood to Keep Going"; march begins; police attempt to disperse marchers; chant: "The Whole World's Watching.")
The wonder of small books, part II
Knowledge for those with short attention spans (or busy lives):Oxford University Press, eminent among the estimable houses, publishes a series of volumes called "Very Short Introductions."
The title list reads like a college catalog, without the tuition freight.
Another cudgel against illiteracy.
OUP has a great blog, too.
(See The wonder of small books, part I.)
Reaganomics runs its course
A fascinating piece on the historic meaning of yesterday's election, by Steve Berg at MinnPost.com. (He wrote a great lede, which I won't spoil here but is well worth reading here.)Elsewhere, he writes:
"Between 1979 and 2005, the incomes of households in the bottom fifth of the population rose only 6 percent in real terms, while the incomes of those in the middle three-fifths rose by 17 to 21 percent, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
"But incomes in the upper fifth soared by 69 percent, and in the top 1 percent by a whopping 176 percent. ... Not since the 1920s had so much of the nation's income been held by such a narrow slice of its people. The trickle-down never trickled."
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