What's Next?

Okay, it's finally happened. Overload is here. This morning I got up at the normal time, fed the cat, had breakfast, watched 20 minutes of GMA, and checked my e-mail. I showered and was ready to head to work--nice and early--when I realized I hadn't written checks for the first-of-the-month bills. I had lots of time, so I grabbed the stack and sat down to write. I did fine until I came to the mortgage payment. I didn't have the bill. I knew I'd received it. I knew it had to be here. It's a small house, so how lost could it be? Thirty minutes later, I finally decided to copy last month's statement and send the check in with that. But I had to find the correct address to send it to, otherwise it would end up in the wrong office. then I'd be charged a late fee. Finding the address took another 15 minutes. Now I was falling behind in my time frame. I had to put outgoing mail in the mailbox, drop an address and a box of stuff at a friend's house, and ge...

Republicans are hollering "class warfare," claiming that the current administration's call to increase taxes on the very wealthy, or at least those who have a home, food, a job, and a vehicle or two, is an insult to those who have worked hard to achieve the American Dream. Before the Republican party starts this fight,  they better be prepared to face the masses of Americans who, no matter what their politics, are struggling to reframe their lives with less income, fewer jobs, and less opportunity. For more than half of all Americans, the American Dream is becoming an economic joke. My first response to Republican concerns about class warfare is: Which class is being attacked in this war? While it might be nice to set one group of "elite" people above others because they had the ability, intellect, and financial support to start or continue a business, doing that automatically lowers the class that has to work to keep those businesses operating.  The class cur...

One of the things that really frosts me about getting more experienced (an educated way of saying older) is that the world keeps changing around me. If I had been born in 1850 it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but my folks brought me into the world in 1950. As I grew up, the Civil Rights marches,the Kennedy assassinations, the MLK assassination, the Los Angeles and Detroit race riots, the Vietnam War, the Feminist Movement, Watergate, and the Nixon resignation all changed my way of viewing the world. The change was gradual, and I was able to adapt through the lens of a college student, a young wife, a mother, a graduate student, and an employee. But one day in 1986, a man from the physical plant of the university where I worked took away my IBM Selectric typewriter. The next day that same man delivered an Apple IIe computer to my desk, along with a schedule of classes. Nothing has been the same since. Shift one. First, I became a student again. Every mo...

So what does one do with one's money? If one has any? Stupid question, says a 30-year-old. Buy new appliances, or a new car, or pay off student loans. But in the "final five," you don't need those things. In fact, you don't need any "things." Someone has already died and left you more old furniture, clothes, and mementos than you have room for. If you have money in the "final five," the big question is where to put it so that it grows. When I was 30 I knew about compound interest, but I didn't have enough money to do anything about it. Today, I live for compound interest. I don't want to buy things, I want to grow my nest egg so I have enough to support a writer's lifestyle until my "internal modem" crashes. Like many others in my cohort, I am constantly searching for the highest interest rate. Fifteen years ago (when I also had no money), the highest interest rate was easily 5 percent, and sometimes greater. Today (no...

From this title, you're undoubtedly thinking that I am looking for a new gym. No, that's not the case. Thin places have more to do with my Lenten outlook. In Celtic tradition, "thin places" are those places where the separation between heaven and earth is thin, gauzy, fine, and nearly non-existent. Thin places are different for every person. This year's Lenten focus at Trinity Episcopal is first of all, thinking about our thin places, and second, finding them. We can search through scripture to find thin places; for example, when Jesus heals the sick, or feeds the hungry. The disciples observe thin places as they travel with Jesus on the path to the cross. But how often do we think about them? Not nearly often enough. My thin places are actually the themes of my life. My first theme is water, especially Lake Erie. Perhaps my first thin place was the view from my childhood bedroom window, where I could watch the stormy furor of the lake and almost--almost--see ...