Family, Nature, Parenthood

In Spring’s Resilience, Hope

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Our daughter and her fiancé had originally wanted a fall wedding.  They’d found a lovely spot and  were about to lock in a date in mid-October that would coincide with my husband’s and my thirtieth anniversary.  Then they decided to check out a couple more wedding venues, just in case.  They found an even more perfect locale, and it was fully booked in October.  They chose to marry in April, instead.

Once plans were underway for a spring wedding, I began to see the timing as fortuitous.  How fitting, to start a life together in the early days of a hopeful new season.  It seemed especially fitting after such a long, frozen winter, just as we were beginning to rejoice at the first signs of nature’s resilience. Yes, again there were daffodils,  cherry blossoms, colonies of purple and white violets amid their heart-shaped leaves, and vibrantly bright azaleas. Our newly planted London Plane trees did not perish in the extreme cold.   A springtime wedding seemed an appropriate antidote for these dispiriting days, when reasons to keep hope alive appear increasingly unsustainable.  

Now that the wedding is in the past, I’m looking back on photos I took of nature’s beauty just outside our doors, before and after the big event.  And I see them now through the lens of that celebratory day.  I see images that evoke renewal, rebirth and indefatigable persistence in the face of adversity.  

Outside our screened porch, rhododendrons dotted with raindrops recall the words of “Morning Has Broken,” the first hymn we sang at the ceremony: 

Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven,

Like the first dewfall on the first grass.

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden,

Sprung in completeness where God’s feet pass.

During the song,  rain could clearly be seen falling through a large open window onto a bank of  flowers below.  We had watched the weather with alarm and dismay all that week, as the chance of showers increased to close to 100%.  As it turned out, the indoor ceremony in the  enormous, nave-like barn, with all windows open to the elements and rain pounding dramatically on the roof, felt absolutely perfect.  For our family, it was also unforgettable, which was the song our daughter chose for her dance with her father.   

The wedding flowers were all in season, locally grown at another nearby farm.  They happened to echo the colors of the three bridesmaids’ dresses, each one different, each the choice of its wearer.  

I’d feared that my husband had pruned this late-blooming lilac far too drastically last year.  Yet it rebounded triumphantly with a fabulous and fragrant show.

There were no peonies among the wedding flowers, as they weren’t yet blooming in our area.  Ever since I saw my first peony, on a walk in New Jersey, it’s been one of my favorite flowers.  Once we moved into our own home in Virginia, it was a gardening goal to dedicate a spot to these gorgeous blossoms.  For a while we had an array of productive peony plants.  Then a blizzard took out several, including the most dazzling example, a pink tree peony, with extra-large blooms.  Those that remained put forth only white blossoms.  Inspired by the pastel colors of the wedding flowers, I decided it was time to expand our peony palette.  That proved more difficult than I had expected, but this peachy Cora Louise and white Primavera with its lacy yellow center have been welcome new additions.   

The bright green leaves above are mayapple plants.  Native to Virginia, mayapples appear in early spring in woodland undergrowth.  Soon after sprouting, they look like closed umbrellas, which then open, creating a protective canopy for birds and small animals.  A single, delicate white blossom grows beneath the foliage, forming a small apple-like sphere.  The fruit, when fully ripe, is said to be a favorite of box turtles, who poop out the seeds to germinate in the soil of the forest floor.  My husband’s box turtle, however, was unimpressed.  Speedy, who has been with H since elementary school, stomped deliberately over the mayapple fruit we offered, circled back and stared at us, as if to say, “Really?” H has recently been treating Speedy with freshly harvested earthworms and lawn grubs, as well as the occasional bite of tender beef filet.  Our turtle may be living the high life, but the mayapple appears content in its unassuming humility.  I love watching their leaves unfurl every spring in our courtyard.  Quietly reliable, and easily overlooked in the company of the season’s more spectacular stars, the plants remind me of the virtue of humility.  Increasingly unappreciated and underused, humility is a valuable practice in marriage, as in every aspect of life.  This is a truth that becomes clearer to me with every passing year.  And just when I think I’ve gotten the hang of being humble, pride creeps in and I have to start all over again.  As I said, it’s a practice.  

Our Appalachian Red redbud trees abounded in early April with bright fuchsia buds.  The arctic chill of January and February was no match for their steadfast determination, a quality particularly evident in the showy flower clusters that burst forth directly from the trunk and large branches.

As spring progresses, the news from Washington and around the world teems with one ugliness after another: multiple wars, gun violence in houses of worship, sky-high costs of housing and basic necessities, environmental dangers, horrific disease, famine, mind-boggling government corruption and outright cruelty, among other perils.  We may be tempted to retreat to our own private islands of solace and despair.  We may be tempted to believe that evil is bound to win.  But just as each new day offers glimpses of transcendent natural beauty, it also offers opportunities to share in the power of community with old and new friends.  All around us we see spring’s glorious, dogged persistence, in the tendrils of the seeking vine, the now-leafy tree, the shaggy golden dandelion in the sidewalk crack.  May it prompt us to reach out, listen, join hands, stand up, speak out and act together for the greater good.  May it inspire us to be the reason that someone else is hopeful, for a change.    

Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning,

born of the one light Eden saw play!

Praise with elation, praise every morning,

God’s recreation of the new day! 

 

Morning Has Broken

Words:  Eleanor Farjeon, 1931 

Music: Traditional Gaelic melody

 

Lamentations 3:23:  Great is God’s faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.  

Community, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Parenthood

Mother’s Day 2026: With a Newly Married Daughter, a new Phase of Parenting

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May 1999, with my daughter, at five months, on the screened porch of my parents’ house in Atlanta.

It’s been just over two weeks now since our daughter’s wedding.  She and her fiancé were married in a very moving ceremony to which they’d given much thought.  Festive food, drink, and a rollicking dance party followed.  Several dear friends and family members present had attended my husband’s and my wedding thirty-one years ago.  All five of her young cousins on my husband’s side were with her at once for the first time ever.  The setting was a lovely working farm among the rolling hills of Loudoun County, Virginia.  We could well have been in the horse country of my native Kentucky.  

As the wedding day approached, I thought back on approximately twenty-eight years of motherhood, beginning with those first days when I discovered that I was expecting.  I kept coming back to the phrase I find myself thinking at every family milestone event:  our daughter is the daughter I’ve always wanted.  

Our first ultrasound image of our baby girl was telling:  she was upside down and doing vigorous scissor kicks.  This child would likely be a spirited, energetic presence.  

In those early days, I had a vague vision of what I hoped she’d be like, and the ways I might see my beloved parents, maybe even grandparents, in her.  I hoped we’d come to share a cherished friendship, much like the one I still enjoy with my mother.  

While I had wished she’d share a love for some of my favorite things, and she has, after her birth, I soon understood that it would be wondrous to witness the many ways she’d surprise us.  

It’s been a grand adventure to watch her move through various life phases:  especially bold around a year, suddenly shy at two.  Funny from the very beginning, able to laugh at herself.  As a toddler determined to try new things with minimal assistance.  How often she declared, “Self do it!”  Quickly, it was evident that she was gifted with courage, but also with kindness and compassion.  

As she grew, my husband and I saw how her character reflected traits from both of us, yet combined in novel ways.  She became the teenager who jumped into musical theatre while learning  BC Calculus, and then the University of Virginia student who chose a career in aerospace engineering and minored in astronomy.  

We’ve been blessed with almost three decades of being parents to our daughter.  Every once in a while, when I hear her call out “Mama,” past and present versions of her collide.  I get a sort of amazingly surreal time-warp sensation.  Sometimes when my husband and I reminisce about old times, we see her there with us.  Then it hits us that she wasn’t even born yet.  Seems like she’s always been a part of us.  And she always will be.

I marvel that our daughter does, indeed, carry in her traces of those who’ve gone on before.  My father was absolutely, resoundingly, overjoyed to become a grandfather.  Papa loved everything about our daughter.  In the curve of her nose, and in her gracious, humble confidence, I see him.  And she’s her Nana’s girl, too.  My mother, the practical realist, loves her granddaughter every bit as much as my father did.  Her role, though, has always been to  be the more subdued foil to Daddy’s sunny optimism.  Our daughter shares Nana’s willingness to face, and even to find humor, in life’s bitter and difficult aspects.

My husband and I, August 1998, at Mount Vernon, shortly after we moved to Virginia. I was five months pregnant with our daughter. (My facial expression is one I see on my mother in countless photos.)
January 5, 1999. With my mother and daughter, six days old, at our first townhouse in Virginia.
My mother and newborn daughter, January 7, 1999.
Happiness all around: my parents and daughter at 9 months, ready for Gymboree, September 1999.

With our daughter newly married, we’ve moved into another distinct parenting stage.  We’re absolutely delighted that she’s chosen a young man whom we happily welcome as a son.  They began dating in 2019, when they were both in college, but have been friends since 2014, when they met in high school drama. In their first shared theatre experience, she was among the citizens of Verona, and he played Romeo.  Our families, as drama volunteers and enthusiastic patrons, quickly became well acquainted. 

The newly married couple, April 25, 2026. (Thanks to my sister-in-law Julie for this photo.)

Our daughter and her new husband complement each other like colors on the color wheel.  At their wedding, I offered this toast:  May your love and respect increase with the years.  May you nourish each other, like the forest of plants you lovingly tend in your home.  May you strengthen and encourage one another, like two trees that flourish and thrive because they’re entwined together.  

A portion of the wedding banner I painted for the couple.

And may we, my husband and I, continue to grow as good parents to both our children.  And if we get the chance one day to be grandparents, may we embrace that role with as much joy and dedication as our parents did before us.  

Community, Faith and Spirituality

Christ is Risen!

 

Christ is risen! Shout Hosanna! Celebrate this day of days.

Christ is risen! Hush in wonder; all creation is amazed.

In the desert all surrounding, see, a spreading tree has grown.

Healing leaves of grace abounding bring a taste of love unknown.

 

Christ is risen! Raise your spirits from the caverns of despair.

Walk with gladness in the morning.  See what love can do and dare.

Drink the wine of resurrection, not a servant, but a friend;

Jesus is our strong companion.  Joy and peace shall never end.

 

Christ is risen! Earth and heaven never more shall be the same.  

Break the bread of new creation where the world is still in pain.

Tell its grim, demonic chorus: “Christ is risen! Get you gone!”

God the First and Last is with us.  Sing Hosanna every one!

Christ is Risen

Words: Brian Wren, 1984

Music: Polish carol; arr. by Edith M.G. Reed, 1926

 

May the loving spirit of the risen Christ urge us toward acts of mercy, kindness and grace, give us the courage to speak truth to power, and stand against evil and injustice.  

Happy Easter!

Community, Faith and Spirituality

Good Friday 2026

“It is finished.”  With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

–(John 19: 30)

Jesus’s final words on the cross were not a cry of defeat, but a declaration of victory.  His earthly mission was completed.  He had broken down the barrier between us and God.  

With his help, our work as brothers and sisters in Christ, as God’s children, continues.

 

For  more on Good Friday, see last year’s post here.  

 

Community, Faith and Spirituality

Last Supper, Last Words

During his final meal with his disciples, Jesus knew his earthly life was nearing its end.  He used those last hours with his followers to stress the heart of the gospel:  love one another as he has loved them.  As he washed their feet, he urged them toward an active, audacious mission of caring for others, just as he cares for them.  Maundy Thursday marks the commemoration of this commandment, or mandate, to love one another. He knew he would soon be betrayed and executed, but he chose love.  

Let’s try to do the same.  Though the world may normalize violence, cruelty and retribution, let’s be radical.  Let’s do the hard work of choosing love.  

Last year’s post on Maundy Thursday remains as relevant as ever. See here.  

Faith and Spirituality

On Palm Sunday: a Tale (and a Choice) of Two Processions

Today is Palm Sunday, the first day of the holiest week in the Christian calendar.  It’s a celebratory day, when we commemorate what is often referred to as Jesus’s “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem at the start of Passover.  Jesus wasn’t the only notable person entering the city that day, to acclaim and fanfare, however.  This was the topic of our minister’s sermon today.  

The week-long Passover celebration brought thousands of the Jewish faithful from outlying areas to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple and make their annual sacrifices.  The population of the city swelled to four our five times its usual size.  Passover marks God’s deliverance of the Jews from slavery in Egypt.  To remind the Jewish population that even (and perhaps especially), during this charged time, they remained subjects of Rome, the Governor of Judea would enter the city with a grand military parade.  During Jesus’s day, the Roman Governor, of course, was Pontius Pilate.  He ruled the area from his palace in the pleasant seaside town of Caesarea, some sixty miles away.    

Pilate and his formidable entourage entered Jerusalem from the west, through the city’s largest, grandest gate.  His procession would have been similar to those associated with an imperial military victory, as I discussed in an earlier post on Advent.  There would have been warhorses festooned for battle, majestic chariots and legions of Roman soldiers.  The message would have been clear:  “We let you worship your own god, but never, never forget, that Caesar is truly in charge.”  

Jesus and his disciples entered from the opposite and eastern end of the city, from the village of Bethany or Bethphage near  the Mount of Olives.  Jesus was often in Bethany, as it was the home of his close friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus.  Not a place of prime real estate, it was a poor area, about two miles from Jerusalem.  Jesus’s mode of entry was nothing if not intentional.  At Bethany, he sent two of his disciples ahead to the next village, instructing them to return with a donkey and her colt, which they would find tethered in a certain spot (Matthew 21: 2-3).  

Jesus rode into the city on the donkey, with the colt walking along beside them.  By this time, after three years of ministry, Jesus had become a well-known, if perplexing figure.  It was said that he’d been born to an ordinary family in the backwater village of Nazareth.  While he lacked formal religious training, he clearly knew scripture.  He spoke with the authority of a learned rabbi, yet he had an air of humility.  Among his friends and followers were those that his righteous, upstanding fellow Jews tended to avoid, such as tax collectors, prostitutes and beggars.  He traveled around with a ragtag inner circle that included rough uneducated fishermen, and even women. His teachings, which attracted huge crowds, were often controversial and counter-cultural:  Blessed are the meek?  Love your enemies?  It seemed that he really had healed all manner of afflictions and diseases.  He’d cast out demons.  In addition to his friend Lazarus, it was said that he had brought two others back from the dead: a  a widow’s only son, and a twelve-year old girl.   He wasn’t especially concerned with Hebraic purity laws; he wasn’t afraid to touch the unclean as he healed them.  He even claimed to forgive sins.   Who was this Jesus, exactly?  More than a prophet?  An extremely talented fraud?  If he was a fake, what did he seek to gain?  Neither riches nor personal glory, it seemed.  This Jesus was an enigma.  

Our pastor urged us to imagine the two very different processions through Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday.  They approached from opposite ends of the city, and they were polar opposites in spirit.  One represented imperial might and earthly power.  Its intent was to subjugate through fear and awe.  The other represented a kingdom not of this world, a peace beyond our understanding, and a release from bondage, both physical and spiritual.  Jesus’s humble donkey (likely a nursing female, accompanied by her colt) was chosen not only to contrast with Pilate’s battle-ready military stallion, but also to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah about the future Messiah: 

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!  Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!  See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey. (Zechariah 9: 9).

The crowds that cheered Jesus on probably included some of the marginalized individuals he had healed.  They hailed him with these words:

Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest! (Matthew 21: 9)

The word “hosanna” means “save us.”  It implies a fierce urgency:  save us, and save us now! The exclamations of Jesus’s followers were a direct threat to Roman rule.  The Emperor was considered a god-like and divinely appointed figure.  He, and only he, could save the people.  He, and only he, was the true King.

Which of these two processions, our pastor asked, do we choose to attend and support?  He didn’t say this, specifically, but might we church folk pledge our allegiance on Sunday morning to Jesus’s path of loving our neighbors, of compassion and grace, while worshipping on weekdays at the altars of earthly prestige?  

Sometimes even the best-intentioned of us can get the two paths muddled up.  It’s especially easy to see where others have strayed while remaining blind to our own misguided meanderings.  

Our minister encouraged us not to make the spiritual leap from the high point of Palm Sunday directly to Easter.  If we want to keep on the disciple path, we must journey with Jesus through the dark valleys of this Holy Week.  The only way to Easter is through the cross.  

This week I’m asking myself what it means in my life to hail Jesus as savior on Palm Sunday, stick with him through the heartbreaking disappointment of betrayal on Maundy Thursday, and the terrible pain and sacrifice of Good Friday.  I will never do enough, of course.  No one of us mere humans can.  But Jesus came to share with us the transforming power of God’s grace.  May God bring us the courage we need, and the assurance that he walks with us through the lowest points of this week, as well as those we will encounter throughout our earthly lives.  

 

John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg discuss the two Palm Sunday processions and their implications in their book The Last Week, published in 2006.  

Nature

Spring at Last, 2026

Spring may really be here.  It seemed like it might not happen this year, that we could be stuck in never-ending winter.  A forever winter.  But on this vernal equinox, the first official day of the new season, spring is in the air, and all around. 

The morning began chilly, but temperatures quickly climbed into the 50s.  The DC area’s famous cherry trees are starting to bloom.  

The golden, bell-like flower clusters of spiky mahonia are at their most fragrant right now.  One deep sniff of their lemony perfume, and I’m transported to my childhood back yard by the old swing set.  

The hearty miniature daffodils are the first in our yard to bloom.  They should be followed soon by their taller counterparts.  

Before long, spring will be working its brightest magic, turning winter’s grays and browns to vivid greens and glowing rainbow colors.  

The transition is likely to continue at a fast pace.  The 80-degree temperatures of summer will likely be here on Sunday.

Let’s enjoy the delights of this fresh new season while we can!

Community, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friendship

Reflections on Haygood Memorial United Methodist Church, as its Centennial Approaches

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The Atlanta church I grew up in celebrates one hundred years of ministry this month.  Haygood Memorial United Methodist Church is located in the heart of the historic Morningside neighborhood, immediately adjacent to the elementary school.  When my parents and I moved to the area in 1968, we considered it a stroke of great fortune to find a home a little more than a block away from the church and school. We began attending Haygood that summer, when I was about to start second grade.  Haygood served as my home church for the next several decades; it nourished me in many ways as I grew from child to adult. When my mother relocated to Virginia in 2017, following my father’s passing the year before, we’d seen twelve pastors come and go.  Our Haygood connection had held strong for forty-nine years.  Because the congregation is still filled with dear friends, the link remains vital today. 

The impact of Haygood in our lives has recently become especially clear to me.  Looking back, I see what a blessing it has been to be part of a dynamic, caring, multi-generational congregation.  As the ideal faith community should, Haygood offered us ongoing opportunities to interact regularly with a wide variety of people of all ages, from infants to the very elderly. From the babies I first encountered when I helped with the nursery on Wednesday nights, to the spunky octo- and nonagenarian widows my father, as one of several Haygood van drivers, drove to and from Sunday services.  There were the older adults who taught me in Sunday School.  My parents, likewise, taught elementary Sunday School classes for years.  For me, the church was filled with benevolent parental figures I could trust, people who looked upon me with genuine concern. And then there were our peers—the children who came of age with me, and the young parents who became grandparents alongside my parents.  Such invaluable interactions accrue, with time, in a close-knit, friendly neighborhood; over the decades, strangers become family.  A compassionate, welcoming church accelerates that process.  At Haygood we found the key to an instant, but well-rooted and long-lived family.

Above, my parents with their first-grade Sunday School class, on the steps of Haygood in the summer of 1969. It shows my father with his mustache, which was, thankfully, not around for long.

The church was named after Georgia-born siblings Atticus and Laura Haygood.  Atticus (1839–1896) began his career as a Methodist circuit rider.  He later became president of Emory University and a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.  He was a strong advocate for education and rights of the formerly enslaved.  In books and sermons, he pushed for freed Blacks’ integration into society.  Laura (1845-1900)  was a champion of women’s education, a teacher who founded girls’ schools in Georgia and China.  After her Atlanta school merged with Girls’ High (the city’s first public school for girls) in 1877, she became its principal.  She was a leader in mission work at Trinity Methodist Church, where she established practical programs for aiding the poor.  At her death, she was serving as a missionary in China.   

I think Atticus and Laura would be pleased to see that their namesake church is one that cares for its members not as an end in itself, as a country club does, but to better equip them to serve God by serving others. They’d approve of Haygood’s emphasis on Bible study not to store up an armory of “gotcha verses” for scoring big wins in theological disputes, but to promote greater insight and to fuel compassion.  They’d be gratified to see a church that tackles the practical, often messy, civic-minded work of loving our neighbors.  They’d approve of a church that generally tries to leave the judgment to God in order to be His hands and feet in the wider world.  This is the Haygood I remember.  And it’s the Haygood that flourishes to this day, serving a vibrant intown Atlanta community.  

Our family in a Haygood directory photo, 1975.

My family and I were there for Haygood’s  fiftieth and seventy-sixth birthday festivities.  We won’t make it in person to the centennial, but Mama and I will certainly be there in spirit.  Haygood will always be our family’s beloved home church.  

My father and my daughter at Haygood’s front doors, July 2008.
My mother with her good friend Beverly after Daddy’s memorial service in August 2016.
Community, Parenthood

Snow, Again

Northern Virginia escaped the brunt of the “bomb cyclone” that brought blizzard conditions and historic snow totals to New York and New England beginning on Sunday evening.  But we did get more snow.  And I’d only just begun to adjust to stepping out our front door onto a squelchy lawn rather than a skating rink.  

Unlike the steely “snowcrete” mixture that blanketed us in late January, this was a beautiful, fluffy-looking snow.  It clung poetically (although heavily and adversely in spots) to trees and foliage.  It’s actually possible to walk through this snow.  And, much to the delight of the neighborhood kids, it has been perfect snowman-making snow.  

Best of all, because the arctic blast of single-digit temperatures has subsided, it may not endure as long as the last one. 

But we may not go snow-less into March.  More of the white stuff could hit us next week.  

Wish you were here, Spring!

Community, Faith and Spirituality

Out of the Ashes, the Promise of Hope

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On this Ash Wednesday, I look out on a muted, gray-scale world.  Some patches of dull, brownish green are emerging on Northern Virginia lawns as late January’s formidable coating of snow-ice at last begins to melt.  Snow boulders still line roads and cover big expanses of parking lots.  The once pristine blanket of white is mottled with dirt and debris.  The mid-day sky is whiter than the snowy ground.

Oh, for warm rains to usher in the hint of spring.  To thaw the last of the dirty ice, to wash our surroundings clean, to refresh hardened hearts.  

Oh, for a healing power to revitalize the messy ashes of our fragile, mortal lives.  To offer the promise of new life, peace, and hope.

In a way, that’s what Ash Wednesday is all about.  

See my post from 2023: Beyond the Ashes.  

A blog about motherhood, marriage and life: the joys and frustrations, beauty and absurdity, blessings and pain. It's about looking back, looking ahead, and walking the dog.