Marilyn R. Gardner's Blog, page 35
December 18, 2017
Advent Reflection – To Love is to Hurt
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“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love i...
December 13, 2017
Immigrant Families – A New Report
In the last two years, the immigration debate has become louder and arguably less civil. Political platforms and decisions based on fear have dominated the conversation, but behind the conversation are approximately 23 million people. The number includes those lawfully present as well as those who are undocumented. It includes around 12 million children who are legal citizens born in the United States, but whose parents are non-citizens.
How does the...
December 12, 2017
Advent Reflection – Silence and Liminal Spaces
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When I wake in the early morning I am always struck that our home is silent. There are no voices raised in conversation; no arguments, no agreements. There is no music, no sound of chopping or mixing from the kitchen, no sound of running water.
Of course if I really listen I hear noise from the traffic on Memorial Drive a few blocks away. I hear noise from household helpers – a refrigerator’s hum of activity; radiators spluttering, working hard to bring heat to the house, the low-pitch of an...
December 6, 2017
Advent Reflection – A Mom’s Tears
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Ask any mother and she will tell you that the tears we weep for our children are like no other. They are tears that come from deep within our souls as we cry out in pain, either for them or because of them. They are the tears we weep in solitude when our daughter has faced her first break-up. At that moment, should the boy be present, we would possibly commit a crime that locks us up, unless the lawyer can use the grounds of love, impulse and passion to convince a jury that we are not danger...
December 4, 2017
Advent Reflection – If You are Weary
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We put up our Christmas tree yesterday. It is beautiful – a Balsam pine tree that brings the forest into our living room. It’s a tall tree, reaching proudly to our ceiling, decked out in the season’s finest white lights and many years of ornaments.
I sit beside our tree and I almost forget that our world is hurting. Almost, but not quite.
Underneath and surrounding the bright lights of Christmas is the reality that we live in a broken world. Somehow the holidays make it seem worse. We have a...
November 30, 2017
The Season for Candle Time
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This is the time of year where morning comes slowly and evening quickly.
I feel melancholy as I wake up far before the sun rises over the Atlantic ocean, just a few miles to the east of us. As much as I want to embrace these days and all they hold, I am a woman who loves light and sun. I love it when sunlight floods my living room and bright light and warmth comfort me beyond my bones to my soul. As soon as I rise, I go to the kitchen and turn on the lights of the newly decorated Christmas t...
November 27, 2017
”I’m not from here…wherever ‘here’ is.”
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I’m from the edges of the map
the edges of the Pacific
I’m from the edges of the room
the outside looking in
I’m from Southeast Asia
unless you mean my nationality
I’m from the U.S.
unless you mean where my heart is
I’m not from here
wherever “here” is
A few months ago. I was with a group of global nomads and the “I’m From” poem exercise came up as an activity to do with students, third culture kids, immigrants, refugees, expats and all those who live between. We...
November 22, 2017
Thanksgiving for the Broken-hearted
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Robynn and I were recently texting about Thanksgiving. This year both of us will fill our houses and hearts with people who are hurting. These will be the tables of the broken-hearted, chairs of the grieving, glasses of the bewildered, and dessert plates of the deserted.
What do we do when our tables are filled with the broken-hearted?When comfort feels as elusive as sunshine in winter?
We raise glasses of gratitude, because gratitude precedes the miracle. And God knows, we need miracles.
A...
November 20, 2017
Morning Sky Over Central
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It is windy today as I walk toward the subway. Leaves of varying shades of brown, yellow, and faded orange dance in the street, nature defying the human view of a Monday morning.
I turn the corner on Massachusetts Avenue, and the morning sky over Central Station in Cambridge meets me with beauty and hope.
My heart has hurt for many people in these past few weeks. It has hurt for the finality of death and the pain of poor decisions; the sadness of relationships that are struggling and the dee...
November 16, 2017
#OnlytheGood – Volume Six
You’re My Favorite – this one is just delicious! I’ve linked before to Lisa Ferland’s work and this one is just as lovely as the last.
An excerpt:
You crawled into bed with me this morning after the sun rose. My arms wrapped around you and I breathed in your hair. You smell of the shampoo you didn’t wash out of your hair last night...
