Mary Beth Writes

12/15/2022

Spirituality is interesting. For most of us, it is the nebulous ought’s and ought-not’s handed to us by our families, churches, and culture we grew up in. It’s obeying sensible and weird rules about how to behave. Spirituality is given to us, often without our understanding how much of our sense of who we are is simply a passing along of lots of traditions and rules.

There is another way of understanding spirituality. It’s a way of being awake to the world and moment we are in. Its standing outside on your porch at night, looking at the sky - not to see how lovely it is – but simply to see it. To look as intently as we can at what’s there, what the air around us feels like, what noises we hear, what the universe is humming tonight.

I invited you yesterday, to send photos of right now, where you live, what you are seeing, what is capturing your imagination. Holiday photos are great. So are pictures of nature and pets and what’s going on in your kitchen or craft room or your congregation or classroom.

Instead of fulfilling what we already know and expect from advent, Christmas, December– I’m inviting us to be still and then and look around. What’s your dog yearning for when you look into her face? What is your grandkid learning as she wildly climbs the castles at the playground? What happens when you bite into the first double chocolate cookie you make late at night when you can’t sleep? Those kinds of photos, too.

Here are some photos some of you sent yesterday.

Can you feel the chilly breeze coming up and over that ridge?

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David says of this: “Taken last Sunday at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, at the mineral exhibit. This one is of Pyrite “Sun”, obtained from Sparta, IL. Having a camera in my cell phone allows me to get a lot of photos that would have been impossible back in the day. I can press the cell phone right up against the glass of the display case and there will be no annoying reflections.”

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This is a NASA photo of a star burst which has the Pyrite dynamics of a lifeforce bursting outwards from the middle.

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Len took this photo at our last house.

“The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keeping on
Like a bird that flew
Tangled up in blue”

Bob Dylan

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You can email your photos to me at MB at MaryBethDanielson.com   If I get more pictures from you, I will post them. 

 

 

 

 

Comments

I really like your photo ops for all of us!

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Len’s Birthday

11/30/2023

Last week I mentioned that Monday of this week would be Len’s birthday. A friend remarked to me ever so kindly later that day, “I thought his birthday was the 30th?”

It is. Len’s birthday is the 30th. This same friend has commented to me, over the years, about how much I remember.

Covid Diary #1350 Thanksgiving

11/22/2023

Today is 1350 days since the that March Friday in 2020 when we all went into quarantine.

Today is 60 years since JFK was assassinated on November 22, 1963. I remember that day, so does Len, so do many of you. Here’s a scary truth. We are as far today from that day – as that day was from the Wright brother’s first flight at Kitty Hawk on Dec 17, 1903.

Quarantine Diary #1349 Sci-Fi & Prophecy

11/21/2023

We both took Covid tests this morning and both of us still have pink lines. I asked the internet what this means and it says I might be pregnant.

I have a call into my doctor’s office to discuss. I feel so much better that if I didn’t know I have Covid, I wouldn’t know it. I’ve been sicker than this after too much pie.

Covid Diary #1347

11/19/2023

A few of you might realize yesterday we were 1345 days since March 13, 2020, and today we’re at 1347. Yup, I used a different calculator. Just a fun reminder that precision depends as much on asking the right question as doing perfect math.

I’m in day #4 of having Covid. No more chills. I have a fever of 100.4 which is more impressive than the 100.2 that Len achieved on his Day #4.  I’m taking various OTC meds and I keep track of them in my phone’s notes because, wow, it’s so easy to have no memory of the last time one took something. I’m good. Enough.

Covid Diary #1345

11/18/2023

I thought I was done with the Covid Diary but guess what? Len and I caught Covid this week! Actually, Covid caught us. We have continued to wear masks in stores, library, meetings, and our church so we will never know for sure where Len encountered Covid. And since I got it four days later, I guess we know where I got it…

My New Substack for Short Stories

11/11/2023

Let’s call this “Old Dog Versus New Tricks.” Does it feel to you as if I’ve been extra quiet these past months? It does to me. One big reason is that I’ve been figuring out Substack.

Here’s the deal: In addition to this blog, I’ve been writing more creative fiction. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and I’m finally taking it seriously. I’m not giving up this website, but substack is going to let me concentrate on short stories and other stand-alone pieces.

What’s Substack?

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