It’s been an intense fall. An intense year, really, but particularly an intense fall in my world. We had no rain to speak for a couple months this summer, and so I didn’t expect much in the way of fall color, but it got crazy cold all at once. The one and only benefit of…
Read MoreAll articles filed in death
Small Things, Great Love (Reblog)
The past two weeks. It has almost been too much to bear, all the heartache. All the hatred and the hurting and brokenness everywhere we turn. It is too much. I am tempted to shut it out: turn off the news, avoid the rapid-fire of social media politicking. Sink into my own comfortable life, where…
Read MoreLifting The Veil
Saturday morning, Christian and I provided music for a funeral at our parish. The man was our age and had school-age children, and it was impossible to avoid the recognition of just how fragile is the reality we cling to, how quickly it can change, and truly, how blessed we are to have what we have–even…
Read MoreFiction: Stardust
It began on a magical night beside the river Thames… or so my mother tells me. There was a twenty-car pileup and my parents were stranded in the fallout as her labor gained momentum. By sheer dumb luck, there was an OB three cars up and one to the left. An hour later, I came…
Read MoreOn Death, But Without Being Morbid (a 7qt post)
This entire week, the subject of death has been front and center, but I promise I’m not being morbid today. In fact, to prove it to you, I will begin with….Nicholas, of course. ___1___ Earlier this summer, when we first thought Grandma was dying, Nicholas took the news very hard. So on Tuesday, I wasn’t…
Read MoreNinety-eight
When I was a kid, my sisters and I stayed with my grandma for a few days when my parents had to take a trip to some far-flung northern location to pick up farm equipment. Tracks for the combine, maybe? A ridge-till cultivator? I don’t remember. It probably happened more than once. We slept in…
Read MoreThoughts for Good Friday
Three quick thoughts for Good Friday: 1. I don’t think I can legally use the image, so please click here. I hate fasting days. But if this picture doesn’t sock you in the stomach and make you rethink your entire life, I don’t know what will. 2. Our deacon gave a short homily with a…
Read MoreJonah, Marines, and prenatal diagnosis
Jonah had a really bad attitude. God gave him a job he didn’t want to do– the people of Nineveh weren’t worth his trouble–so he took off in the opposite direction, only to find himself stuck in the belly of a fish. When he proved indigestible (how lucky for him he was spit out near…
Read MoreLife, Death, Life
On December 30th, we got a phone call early in the morning: a new arrival in the family, a gorgeous little boy, very nearly a mirror image of our own little guy. Two cousins, a month apart, destined to be mistaken for each other their whole lives. Twelve hours later, a friend passed away. Sharyn…
Read MoreI can’t be glad
I had another post mostly written, all about royalty and riches, but when I came downstairs this morning, the headline on the TV was gleaming, “THE KILLING OF BIN LADEN,” and I realized…it can wait till tomorrow. “Apparently they announced it at 10:30 last night,” Christian said. I wandered over to the TV and watched…
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Kathleen M. Basi 