Where Is the Line? A Lament

June 22, 2025June 22, 2025 / Apple Hill Cottage / 8 Comments

I once wrote a post about the double yellow line in the middle of the road.

Hardly anyone read it. It probably wasn’t very good–maybe the metaphor was too strained, or too vague, or maybe just not enough lines had been crossed. After all, it was back in April of 2017.

Back then, I wrote about how everyone was staying in their own lane and not crossing the double yellow line in the center. But today I’m writing about another line–the line that, once crossed, it’s too far. Everyone knows it is too far. And when it is crossed, there is opposition. And outrage. And courageous action.

I keep waiting. And the longer I wait, the farther away the line moves. And the angrier I get.

There was the Secretary of Defense and his buddies texting war plans on a Signal chat with a journalist. i thought surely that would be the line. There was deporting people to an El Salvador prison on a plane that courts had ordered to be turned around. i thought surely that would be the line. There were the bogus charges filed against a sitting member of Congress for simply doing her job. i thought surely that would be the line. There was the sending of the National Guard to LA without the Governor’s request–a violation of the constitution and I thought surely that would be the line. There was the handcuffing of a sitting senator. i thought surely that would be the line. There are masked thugs roaming the cities, grabbing workers from their jobs and people from their homes. Surely that is a line? But I know now, that there probably isn’t any red line. Remember he said years ago, he could kill someone in downtown Manhattan and nothing would happen. Have we become a nation who just allows their leader to break any law he chooses? Every day I wake up and wonder what embarrassing or illegal thing he has said or done while I was sleeping.

Yes, I am angry all the time now. I have violent thoughts. And anyone who knows me, knows that I am a peace-loving, non-violent person.

I’m wondering how peaceful americans can tolerate the kind of ugly slurs and racist garbage that comes out of his mouth? And it isn’t just him. A state senator and her husband were assassinated last week, and another state senator and his wife were shot in their home. And Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, made jokes about it online. MADE JOKES! And while I have been writing this post, trump has bombed another country without permission from Congress. It’s not war, they say. So if bombing another country is not war, is it a terrorist attack?

My former son-in-law, who is an immigrant from Spain, brought me books the other day–five books on the immigrant experience. He is a teacher, so these are categorized as Young Adult novels, but if you are a reader, you know that many Young Adult writers’ words are vibrant and magical.

I just finished home is not a country by Safia Elhillo. I read it slowly and it took me about five hours. Written as a series of narrative poems, it is about Nima, an Arabic teenager in this country, trying to make sense of her family history and why she is in this country. A beautiful read, these are the words that stood out to me:

when i met you i was already angry
so angry
about everything i thought had been taken from me
everything i thought i did not have
so busy looking
at my one empty hand i almost missed everything
filling the other
Safia Elhillo, home is not a country

Yes, I’m so angry. Angry at my government that is falling away while We the People are unable to do anything about it; angry at the others who voted for criminals to take over the government (and seem to be just fine with it); angry at the Christian Nationalist cult that is ruining the name of Jesus for so many; angry at those in power for their complete lack of respect and kindness and compassion for others, for the earth, for the world; angry at my own personal circumstance that is hollowing out our lives; and yes, I’m angry at God. For allowing all this pain. I’m overwhelmed. And so busy looking at my one empty hand I can’t see anything else. Lord, help me not to miss what is in my other hand…

and now, I have nothing else to say. So I will offer a prayer, a lament. Feeble words from a powerless woman in a weakened country in a frail world that seems to be losing its light.

Gracious Father, Lord and Spirit of all that is Holy and Beautiful,
this world is so broken
yet i look out the window 
at the white clouds
in the bright sky
and the leaves of the maple in the breath of wind.
nothing looks broken out my window.
but i know that bombs have just fallen from the sky
a world away. but it might have been otherwise (apologies to Jane Kenyon)
people just like me don't have food 
won't be cooking dinner
won't be taking their husband to his dentist appointment tomorrow.

What will it take, Lord?
this world is so broken
rich people sit in the houses of government
and make the laws that benefit themselves 
and sputter and stutter when confronted 
about the poor, the immigrant, the widowed, the vulnerable
the very people they oppress
the very people you love.

What will it take, Lord?
you gave us this world to steward
bluebirds, salmon, and horses to care for
but we have ozoned up the air
fouled the seas 
plasticated the land 
and sold the rushing mountain streams to the highest bidder.

What will it take, Lord?
Where is the line?
Surely we have crossed it?
Did you mean to die for us 
to leave us miserable 
in this broken world we have sullied for ourselves?
You have said that truth, beauty, love, and kindness will win.
How long, Lord? How long?

Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? (Psalm 10:1)

Can I Play the Piano in Heaven?

May 18, 2025September 21, 2025 / Apple Hill Cottage / 4 Comments

…and the jokey answer to that is Good, because I can’t play the piano now.

I love music. But I can’t play an instrument, can’t sing, can’t even really remember words to songs very well. I can be listening to someone play music and strain to remember the words, even if I know the song. The only time I sing is if I’m in the car by myself. Or in the house alone.




Yet even so, music can transport me to a glorious place:
a place where I can sing;
a place where kindness and mercy are attending;
a place where the wind sings alto;
a place where the rain and the sun
fall together;
a place both near and far
where the world has turned on its axis 
and is the world we long for,
not the world we live in.
Yes, heaven.

Where is heaven?
It is the step through the air,
there but here,
the hand on the mirror but 
through the looking glass.
Where the world is the same but better.
More glisten.
More light.
More calm.
More mercy.
The dimension beyond
where sometimes we can catch
a glimpse,
a shadow.

I was there this morning when the pianist played a piece so intricate, so graceful, that spontaneous applause burst out (in church!) when he was finished.

I was there the other evening when I put in my earbuds and listened to an updated video of the Beatles singing Let It Be.

And that same evening I rediscovered Joan Baez’s 75th Birthday Celebration when she and EmmyLou and Jackson Browne sang The Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee). And if you don’t know the words, listen and weep.

I was there driving down the road earlier this week when the deep rhythmic bass of Celtic Worship’s bagpipes announced my favorite hymn, Jesus Paid It All. And yes, I sang along.

Musicians, artists, writers, storytellers — they remind us of the good; that we can be the force for good; that we are the force for good. Against ugliness, against unkindness, against authoritarian regimes who try to get us to believe untruths. They speak, sing, paint, write what is Real.

And here is Springsteen — showing and singing the crowd his version of heaven. I call it his This Is Happening Now speech. Watch him remind us that We the People are the force for good.

And after you watch that, watch this video of Bruce singing This Land Is Your Land.

Lake Erie
California Redwoods
North Carolina mountains
Kentucky waterfall
Pacific Ocean
Pennsylvania back road
Carmel California
Laurel Mountains Pennsylvania
Murrells Inlet South Carolina
Wisconsin prairie
Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia
Atlantic Ocean

We the people are a force for Good. For Democracy. Against authoritarianism. Against military parades that cost 45 million dollars when the government is ostensibly firing federal workers and agency budgets to cut waste. If you want to protest on June 14, the day of the parade, check out this Indivisible page. It will show you where protests are happening around the country. Coming to a place near where you live. Start making your music (and your signs) now. Whether you can sing or not.

Dark Days

December 15, 2024December 15, 2024 / Apple Hill Cottage / 4 Comments

It is the third Sunday in Advent: the Sunday of Joy.

I write this with only a little touch of irony, because in this season of dark, on a gloomy December day, one of the longest nights of the year, I’m struggling with finding joy.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Just today in church, two friends shared their own distinct struggles with the elusive words of the Advent season: hope, love, joy, peace…And then this afternoon another friend’s battle with anxieties became a prayer. And when I pray, I always remember my friends in Haiti, and that results in more distress. My prayers don’t bring me peace. It’s an anxious time–from the personal, to the political, to worries for the world.

So I’m sitting here wrapped in a blanket, staring at my beautiful light-filled mantle, praying for myself and my friends and the country and the world. Meditating on joy–how we miss it, how we long for it, how we try to make up for its lack on our own terms, in our own ways.

In the sermon today, I heard that Joy is a gift from God, but it is also a decision we make. Choose joy. It’s a familiar phrase, a book title, a piece of music, and the source of many quotes, both familiar and not, But often such quotes simply seem like platitudes when we are going through dark times. When there is nothing to look forward to? Perhaps a good thing to do is look back. Look back and see how God has blessed you through your life. Look back with gratitude at the good things that have happened. Acknowledge your grief of today, and remember things past that made you smile. That make you smile still. Yes, it’s a way of choosing joy.

Remember a few years ago when gratitude was a thing? There were books, there were gratitude journals, there were blogs on writing down your blessings. Isn’t it silly, Isn’t it human, that something like gratitude can be a fad? Gratitude and Joy are related–if we decide to be thankful, if we decide to live life gratefully, then joy will simply be a byproduct of those attitudes. Except, there is nothing simple about joy.

Especially if you are, if one is, if I am, a glass-half empty type of person.

I have a book on my bookshelves called Living Life as a Thank You. The subtitle is The Transformative Power of Daily Gratitude. I don’t know how I came by it; I’ve never read it. Looking at it now for the first time (the cover creaked and groaned when I opened it) the authors are Nina Lesowitz and Mary Beth Sammons and the copyright is 2009. And there is a chapter on Staying Thankful in Difficult Times. And the next chapter is The Power of Gratitude to Make a Difference in the World. Perhaps I need to read this book.

I think most of us who are struggling to find joy right now are really asking the question, How long? How long, Lord, will you allow this injustice to continue? Injustice can be the shape of the world and what the evil powers are doing to it. But injustice can also be the personal–illnesses that can’t be cured, problems that have no solution, anxiety that won’t be calmed, poverty that can’t be escaped, sorrow that can’t be assuaged…And the feeling that you’re tired, exhausted, actually, and nothing that you can do will relieve the endless suffering.

The other book I’m reading right now is Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and The Praying Imagination by Eugene Peterson. I’m spending much time with it and taking many notes because what Peterson says to us right now in this time and what he is saying to me right now in my brokenness is just invaluable. Listen to what he says here:

“The persistence of the prayer ‘How long?’ issues, apparently, from a deep, unshakable conviction that God will bring an end to injustice even though he shows no signs of calling the court room to order…So what accounts for the incredible persistence of the cry? In the general abandonment of prayer, in which great crowds of people give up on God and plunge into the streets to get what they can with their fists, what accounts for the remarkable minority who do not, but who stay, and cry, and wait? We are accustomed by now to St. John’s answer: Worship…St. John’s recurrent representations of worship are not pious, escapist fictions, but theological convictions. The conviction is that God’s action, not the world’s action, is what we want to be involved in. The world is not the context for dealing with God; God is the context for dealing with God (and the world)….Worship is the act of giving committed attention to the being and action of God.”

It is God’s actions, and not the world’s actions that we want to be involved in.

But there’s also one more important thing to remember, or we could easily just try to withdraw from this world’s ugliness. Everything we do is of eternal importance. (I’m summarizing Peterson, here) : Everything we do is political and we can choose the way of God or the way of the world. Every one of our “…encounters is a significant detail in the life of faith. But we are not aware of it. Most of the time we are not living in a crisis in which we are conscious of our need of God, yet everything we do is critical to our faith, and God is critically involved in it. All day long we are doing eternally important things without knowing it…”

At the grocery store, talking with a friend, taking someone a meal, choosing silence over argument …it all counts.

If you are still reading after all of this meandering, thank you. I’ve no answers on finding joy except two: Focus on gratitude and Focus on God while we are waiting (and working) for the injustices of this world to end.

He promises that we will know someday.

And it will be joyous.

And there will be no more sorrow, no more injustice, no more grieving.

And in the meantime, turn off the news and focus on the good; focus on the small things of everyday life that make up those “eternally important things”. I think I will try a Choose Joy project of my own: each day I will take a photo of something that gives me joy or makes me thankful. I’ll report back in a couple of months….And here’s my first photo: