Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Flannery’s Birthday

by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell

“Well I thanks you for my birthday message.
I am thirty-five years old and still have all my teeth.”
—Flannery O’Connor, Letter to Betty Hester, April 2, 1960

Little did I know, I’d have just four more.
Birthdays never meant that much to me
until I stopped having them. Now they seem
a sweetness every humanoid should savor,
a day for cake and contrition for all
the things you done and didn’t get to 
and might not ever, given the call
we all get but really don’t expect to
out of this party we call life. The knife
I use to cut my cake is sharp. Like my
eye and my pen. My stories rife
with folks who need a light to see themselves by.
Maybe candlelight is best, a birthday song
reminding us all we won’t be here long.

(83) Three Poems For Flannery O'Connor's 100th Birthday—Angela Alaimo O'Donnell

Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Home Team

Blast from the past-- walking to 9th grade orientation September 5, 2017

(Ellie, Jane and Mary Margaret)

On that first day of high school for the girls, I walked with Libby (Ellie’s mom), Maggie (Mary’s mom), and Brooke (Jane’s mom) as we dropped them off for their orientation. After the girls disappeared through the doors, the four of us found a bench outside the school, sat together in that mix of nerves and hope, and offered a short prayer for them. That simple moment became the beginning of our little home team, a circle that has gathered a few times a year ever since.

Here's our latest gathering this past Sunday (8 1/2 years since that first gathering)

.... so grateful for this Home Team!

Monday, March 2, 2026

Good connections

Grateful for a weekend with some good connections with folks!

Sunday morning run group photo

baking with Micah - so grateful we still get to do this together after all these years.

moonlight walk with Jodi Hall Sunday night

Sunday, March 1, 2026

Hello March!

Saturday, February 28, 2026

February Twenty-Twenty-Six

"God did not promise that our lives would be easy,
or pain-free, or without enemies, or unshaken by tempests.

But God did promise:
in the belly of the beast?
God will be there.

Because God was already there,
with us,
for us,
each of us,
all of us,
always.

And so the blessing of God,
Who is both the storm, and the shelter,
ready you, bless you, and keep you,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail

(Inspired by Saint Julian of Norwich and the benediction blessing she gives every week at her church)

"The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love- whether we call it friendship or family or romance- is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light." - James Baldwin

“It is wise to live life expectantly, alert to the surprises of God.” -Eugene Peterson

"We can never underestimate this truth: No matter who you are, the biggest thing you do in any day is most often going to be a small act of kindness, decency, or love." -Cory Booker

"The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy." -Henri Nouwen