I was his baby girl. I have memories of sitting on his lap to listen when radio reported on the War in Europe. People don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into, Era bear. Then he told the story of the Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot.     Soon after Easter they embarked, disappointed in the newest baptized who seemed to take Christianity lightly, because they had celebrated and gloried but despite the teaching of Lent few made effort to relieve the poor and suffering in their midst.     The boatsman sighted an unexpected sight of land and Brendan made to investigate. When the saint landed on a small island and made a fire to warm them, to their surprise their dogs whined and barked in every direction. The island at once began to move and the water’s edge surged back and rushed them into their boat. At a distance, it turned out to have been a floating, slumbering, giant whale, the míol mór.     Monsters in the deep, he said, were the earliest crea

  For a date night last November we saw the famed Agatha Christie mystery put again to film. For want of the perfect, soft-boiled egg to breakfast,  The Orient Express features the detective Poirot, a brilliant eccentric, delaying a case of wrongful death at the Wailing Wall in the remains of the ancient Solomonic Temple of Jerusalem. (Watch the scene again here .) A friend gave us an image of Jerusalem for our homecoming. A script appears beneath a vision of a gold dome. Like two front teeth, the Hebrew letter shin, means heart. It appears similar to the Arabic letter,  related via the Phoenicians to the language Jesus spoke, Aramaic (see chart here ). What the difference, where the heart is there is home... The bunny that lay soaked in the rain Sunday, stank Tuesday, now sinks into the ground. I look for the figure unconsciously, never equipped to make the phone call to 3-1-1 for disposal, or with enough bag to bury the corpse. I know there is no perfect or natural death wher

By 1977 is chaplain of Massachusetts State Police (Police Chaplain)                        He is acquainted with Kenny—served as a prison chaplain four years 1960-64, when aged 32-36.             Sermon title 1962… “Give your Doubt to God”             Kenny remembers his analogy of Doubt to a man cheating on his wife. If you cheat, you doubt that your vocation give to you from God is to honor your wife, and serve your family.             Katherine McHugh, 70 yrs-old in 1962, had confessed her weak faith. She asked Fr. Gerry—Do you ever doubt? He was behind the screen, glad she could not see him squeezing his rosary. He swallowed, tempted. He cursed to himself Satan, Be Gone! “You are a child of God. God is merciful and all-understanding. Have you heard the prayer of intercession to St. Peter? Take a prayer card in the vestibule. I was invited to attend a retreat in Gloucester with the most doubt-filled priests you can imagine—the Jesuits. God forgives such

Two cardboard boxes in her hand, Kay glances at me over Rosebud in her high-chair. A week before we move out, this is home. I feel like a passing train, and Kay has just woke up and started her day. The platform moves past. I want another routine commute, please. "We should start at the middle," she decides, seated in front of the bookcase. The electric kettle snickers "Water's ready for tea." "I'm taking Nellie." "Are you making eggs?" "I was thinking maybe you take Nellie, pick up some coffee and those egg sandwiches, and then I remembered all the eggs in the fridge." Nellie does a fancy trick. She waits about a block to pee. We have a corner lot with ample yard, but we try putting her out and she sits at the bottom of the steps. In winter snow she will do her business and scamper back. Why she waits a block? Unlike our friend's dog, Jake, who stays with us on occasion,  pees like a tagger, marking tree after tree, r