A number of weeks ago Tara and I were walking the dog around the neighborhood park when we met a father and daughter who were playing catch. After introducing ourselves, the man was excited to hear that he and Tara both worked in the city in similar fields, and that by the luck of this…
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May
04
It Isn’t Easy Being Green
May
02
Arms Full Of Gifts
Last night (April 29) was the final of three “Shaping our Vision” sessions and again the rooms were packed. Next week members will travel to the District Annual Meeting where our Metro New York area congregations gather to accept two awards. The first granted to our own Gary Nissenbaum for leadership in outreach; the second…
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Apr
26
Weaving: A Tapestry of Reflection
When I was a girl growing up in India, I was taught to sew buttons, the basics of a loom, spool knitting, and to generally love and appreciate tapestries, silks, embroidery, upholstery and weaves of all kinds. My mother, a lover of textures and fabrics, educated me about the variety of textiles across India, the different…
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Apr
09
A Dresser Gone Askew
In seminary I moved every 6-9 months. I could fit all of my earthly possessions into my Honda Civic. I had very little stuff and no furniture. So, when my husband and I moved to NJ eight years ago, my parents “handed down” two matching dressers that had been handed down to them in 1972.…
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Apr
01
Invitations to Blossom
For the last few weeks Tara and I have introduced a new routine into our mornings: Coffee in hand, I open the shades to the living room, gasp, ooh and ahh, and then beg her to come look. Tara knows what’s coming. It’s the same as yesterday, and the day before. She’s kind to pretend it…
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Mar
29
Thin Places
A recent New York Times article in the travel section spoke of the line between heaven and earth dissolving in certain places. As the author describes it, these are “ …locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapses and we’re able to catch glimpses of the divine, or the transcendent or, as I like to think of…
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Mar
07
If We Don’t Invest In Our Youth, Others Will
Totalitarians put their resources into building youth programs. Pluralists don’t. By Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core When the pictures of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were published, I remember staring for a long time at the photographs of the terrorists, searching their faces for signs of dementia or marks of evil. But for…
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