Mulligan Stew

Photo by Dave at DeaPeaJay's Photostream, flickr

There's been a whole lot stewing in my head since early November. It includes the U.S. presidential election, the Episcopal Church in general and our diocese in particular, the peculiar antics on public display at diocesan convention and the undercurrents of hostility behind them, and the long journey my children and I made over Thanksgiving (could be fodder for our own tragi-sitcom, "Two Thanksgivings" or "Tales from the Politically Correct").

Meanwhile, I've been reading catch as catch can, including Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Reinhold Niehbur's The Irony of American History, and, one of the most powerful and beautiful pieces of writing I've encountered for a long time, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (someone I note, with wry amusement, who said to Newsweek that "A book you hope parents will read to their kids" is "The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins" - funny from a guy who writes so tellingly of the interior emotional and spiritual landscape of our canine friends and acquaintances).

At some point in an airplane far above the earth's surface, I had a moment of epiphany that brought all these odds bits and pieces of food for thought, images, emotions, and family gatherings - something about time past and present and Almondine (the great female Sawtelle dog). I'm still working on whether and how to write about it and/or whether to simply toss out morsels of what went into the mix with accompanying reflections. For now, I'm afraid that the best I can do is just highlight some passages that I've found especially meaningful, and later see where I can go from there.