by Lindsay McLaughlin | Nov 6, 2018 | Contemplations
… Autumn is a variegated season, known for its mystery and ever-changing pallet. It’s a season of vibrant golden and green beauty here on the Ridge, punctuated in scarlet; a season of sweet potatoes in the garden and crackling fires in our woodstoves. It...
by Lindsay McLaughlin | Sep 17, 2018 | Contemplations
A friend involved with regional efforts to protect the Chesapeake Bay once told me of a meeting she attended in which representatives of area organizations and advocacy groups stood one by one to enumerate their steps and actions in the cause. After quite a while of...
by Lindsay McLaughlin | Jul 25, 2018 | Contemplations
In the human imagination, and as they have been throughout the ancient world, the cedars of Lebanon are sacred trees, planted by God. They are long-growing, strong, the material of temples and voyages in sea-roaming ships. Recently I read a piece in The New York...
by Lindsay McLaughlin | Jun 22, 2018 | Contemplations
Monotropa uniflora is a small plant, wholly white, a pale translucent flute known as Ghost Pipe or Ghost Plant. It bends at the top and has but a single flower. Without chlorophyll, it cannot create energy as green plants do, from the sun. Instead it draws energy...
by Lindsay McLaughlin | Apr 16, 2018 | Contemplations
(Photography by Joy Houck Bauer) “They say Aslan is on the move.” The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis has enthralled me ever since I was 9 and read the Puffin book with its pen and ink illustrations by Pauline Baynes. Many generations of children have...
by Linda DeGraf | Apr 10, 2018 | Contemplations
I recently participated in a conversation in which dissatisfaction or dissonance was a recurring theme poignantly and piercingly captured in a line quoted from a Mary Oliver poem: I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment…...
