Shifting Identities

Three years ago this Thanksgiving week my husband, daughter, and I, had the opportunity to decorate the White House for Christmas. It’s a tradition that incorporates over 150 volunteers from across the nation and every state who spend three days hanging ornaments on trees, draping garland on fireplace mantels, and spreading glitter everywhere.   Volunteers are assigned to work in groups under the direction of someone who is responsible for transforming a specific area of the

Trump World is a stressful place to live especially if you are a person of color, part of the LGBTQ+ community, a Muslim, a woman, or a non-white immigrant. Add poverty or disability to the list and the stress increases. Donald Trump’s hate-filled rants and indiscriminate executive orders targeting any person or group he doesn’t like has produced an increase in hate crimes and violence, both physical and verbal, and along with it deteriorating mental health for just about any

My husband and I are fond of air traffic controllers. Our affection for them goes back over twenty years ago to when we both were student pilots at our local, class C airport. Class C airports have air traffic controllers who oversee take offs, landings, ground movement, and regulate aircraft flying into or out of their airspace. They were a vital part of our learning to fly because one of the things we had to learn was how to talk to them on our radios. In our tower, the fol

Full disclosure. I am a recovering Catholic. I went to parochial schools from first grade through undergraduate school. I entertained majoring in theology at a Jesuit college. I spent ten minutes thinking about becoming a nun when I was in 8 th grade. Religion is interesting to me. I am drawn to the idea of a God or gods, benevolent ones only. I sense the reality of a spiritual world that marches next to us as we grapple with life. I love rituals that lift and connect. I don

Look around and it’s easy to spot hypocrisy these days. Politicians lie, obfuscate, and deny their wrongdoing. Judges sell their influence. Faith leaders promote division and hate. Honesty and integrity are in decline and corruption is on the rise. So, as I launch this blog, I must confess to my own hypocrisy. I dislike social media, and I rail against it in my book, but I have decided I have to use it.   Stuck in Our Screens , published in May 2025, is highly critical of soc