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22
May
2019
Joan went to put some dishes back onto the top shelf in her kitchen. And discovered that a smoked-glass bowl had broken in half.
We have no idea how, or when, it happened. It could have been yesterday; it could have been years ago.
The bowl belonged to my mother, who died in 1972. We’ve kept it, all these years, because it was hers. We kept several things of hers, because every time we used them, those things reminded us of her.
More accurately, perhaps, we kept them because they reminded us that we loved her.
Many of her things we inherited from her have gone, now. We still have her Indian trays and coffee tables. And her silverware -- that needs polishing regularly -- and her teacups. But the milk jug is long gone. So is a vase we particularly admired.
Joan handed the broken pieces of the bowl to me. “I suppose I could glue it together,” I said.
“It’s not worth fixing,” she replied. “Just recycle it.”
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: beliefs, Habits, Recycling, Richard Rohr
31
Oct
2018
Tonight is Halloween. Or Hallowe’en, if you’re a pedant about spelling. Or even All Hallows’ Eve, if you’re obsessive about religious history.
Traditionally, All Hallows’ Eve was the night preceding All Saints’ Day, the dark night when the ghosts of the dead – the “hallowed” ones – returned to earth. All Saints was a time to honour the dead; All Hallows Eve was, in a sense, their time to take revenge on us still-living souls by scaring the bejabbers out of us.
I don’t know anyone who still believes that the souls of the dead flit among us on Halloween night. But we still enjoy the dressing up, the parading door to door, the make-believe world of ghosties and goblins.
It’s a comforting kind of ritual, a dip into a warm bath of familiarity. These emotions cling, long after reason takes over.
Tags: Rituals, Habits