Tag: cheerio-road

I had just turned 17 when my older sister and I went to see a movie that had taken the public by storm.  It was called “The Exorcist,” and it was based on a bestselling book by the same name. Since at least half of the world’s current population wasn’t born by 1974, you might…

A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. — Luke 6:44-46 The other day I was working the New York Times crossword when one of…

There is a grapefruit tree in my front yard that isn’t the picture of a grapefruit tree, at least not anymore. It has been old and sick-looking for all of the 27 years we have been here, and perhaps for many decades before. Its shrunken trunk is pitted and scarred. The bark, mostly gone. The…

There are a few things I need to fill you in on. First, I am not free from fear. I am terrified. Second, I am not free from anger. I am furious. And third, I am not free from greed. No, I am furious and terrified that I will never see a penny from Social…

I had already waited three months for the approval that was supposed to take 30 days. My Social Security application was in some kind of paper purgatory. It was understandable. Thousands of employees had been fired. Offices, closed. The phone system was jammed and the computer system was down. As DOGE tore deeper into the…

For a few months I’ve been hearing this phrase—here for you—in unlikely places. The words have stayed with me like a thrum beneath the sickening roar of our civic dismantling. Someone is here for me. Someone is here for me in my forsakenness; someone stands ready to help. It started in the still, small quiet…

  Among all the things people have said about Pope Francis after his death, this one summed it up for me: “He was a very decent man in an age of indecency.” To be sure, decency is a rare thing these days. It relies on commonness. Pope Francis was a common man among common men…

  The silence grows louder every day.  Fired federal workers who are worried about losing their homes ask not to be quoted by name. University presidents fearing that millions of dollars in federal funding could disappear are holding their fire. Chief executives alarmed by tariffs that could hurt their businesses are on mute. — The…

Everything is always with oneself at any time. — Maezumi Roshi A fellow Zen student recently told me that she no longer felt like she fit in with her community ­of friends, neighbors, and some of her relatives. This, in spite of being a community leader, volunteer, and close with her family — a person…

I don’t want to deprive anyone of that one special day to remember and appreciate mothers. But I want to talk about the days after, the days before, and the days of mothering that go unnoticed. I want to talk about the regrets, the fear, the trust, the hope, the hard lessons and the wisdom…