• Personal Reflections

    Ten Years of Blogging: A Retrospective

    December 27, 2022 - By 

    Ten years ago today, I hit the little blue “Publish” button that sits off to the side of my composing page here on the WordPress blogging platform. I’d actually finished most all final preparations on a long day’s Christmas Eve, keeping my designer/technical person on the phone an unconscionably long time from across the country as we worked through countless—and, of course inevitable—last-minute glitches and tidy-ups. (Thanks, Randall!) Then I waited till after the holiday to post it. I figured it would only irritate potential readers to debut a blog requiring their attention in direct competition with the celebration of…

  • Music - Religion

    “For Unto Us, a Child Is Born”:
    Handel’s “Messiah” Universalized

    December 24, 2022 - By 

    It’s a by now familiar state of, if not  bliss, then at least deep contentment: listening to “Messiah,” first performed 280 years ago and ever since performed by one orchestra and choral group or another around the world whose members raise their voices to the celestial vision George Frideric Handel was setting to music from the words of the King James Bible as rendered by his librettist and friend Charles Jennens. I’ve heard the work live probably 10 times, sung along with it (gamely!) several more when performances presented that option to audience members, and listened/sung with recordings countless more. And so…

  • Nature - Personal Reflections - Photography

    Bodies in Motion: A Meditation

    December 17, 2022 - By 

    Sometimes, in the diffused light of dawn or dusk, or on foggy streets where almost indiscernible shapes begin to reveal themselves as a human being or two in motion, I will peer a little closer, catch a certain swing of arm, quickened cadence, bounce of head or forward bend and know instantly, “There’s Gene!” (Or Karen or Kate or Kelly.) Our bodies in motion are akin to signatures, indelible gestures that mark and follow us throughout life. All our intimates (excepting the visually impaired) can spot us from the proverbial mile away. But those signatures do share something profound in…

  • Politics/Culture

    Battered, Bruised, and…Resilient? The U.S. Constitution’s Very Good Year

    December 10, 2022 - By 

    Given the overt, in-its-face and over-the-ramparts challenges the Constitution of the United States faced from January 6 onwards, any pundits envisioning a positive year for it would likely have been jeered right off their microphone or desk chair. But perhaps we should look at this through an entirely different lens. Or perhaps, given the events of recent months, we might finally be able to do so. It’s not that the Constitution wasn’t put under severe stress and strain in 2022 (and for several years before that, actually). After all, it doesn’t get much more overt than a full-scale, violent assault on the…