This Sunday is Father’s Day. No doubt you’ll read many saccharine accounts of fathers and what it means to be a parent and to be parented. But reality is not usually as sweet. Sometimes the people in our lives cannot be summed up with sentimentality. One of my favorite poems is This Be the Verse by Philip Larkin because it views parenting as flawed at best. Of course it is overly cynical. Nevertheless, there is much truth in this jaundiced view of parenting as imperfect and … [Read more...]
Mary Oliver and a tiny amphibian
Summer is almost officially here—I’m wishing you sunny days in all ways. This past weekend I went to a memorial service on Saturday and on Sunday, we celebrated Father’s Day. At the memorial service, we heard the Mary Oliver poem “In Blackwater Woods.” It is from her book American Primitive (1983, Back Bay Books) and it ends with these lines: “To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones … [Read more...]
The Almighty Dollar
I was raised a Catholic. I went to Catholic grade school and high school. But I am not really a Catholic now. I have trouble with organized religions, believing faith can be corrupted once it is institutionalized. I have some atheists in my family and I tend toward the rational myself. I look at my faith as a personal thing that I don’t care to discuss. But I do not put down believers or their churches. I accept that everyone is free to make that choice and believe what he or … [Read more...]
New poem by Laura Rodley
Fresh From the Vine My father stood on his hands to dive off the diving board, all six foot four inches of him suspended in air, curling his fingers around the hard edge of the gritty grey board, and dove off. He never missed but one of the last times I saw him do this when I was 10 or 11, his ring cut into his finger from the weight of him standing on his hands. Down he dove with a sliced finger and his ring had to be cut off and he needed stitches. … [Read more...]