Whenever I go looking for miracles “out there,” I am often disappointed. However, miracles have a way of sneaking up on me during everyday activities.
poetry, essays, rants, China explorations…
- Spiritual Musings
- Bloom Where You Are (Trans)Planted
- Hallelujah Choruses
- Learned Helpfulness
- Shape Shifting
- Hymn: How Can I Keep from Singing
- Meditation/Appreciation of “We Are a Gentle, Angry People”
- Meditation/Appreciation of “Earth Was Given as a Garden”
- Meditation/Appreciation of Hymn “Light One Candle”
- Meditation on “Blessed Spirit of My Life”
- Elegy for a Middle Child
- The Importance of Invitations
- Happy New Year, Ruthie
- Valuing Connections, Finding Joy
- Of Loaves, Fishes, and Miracles
- Debts, Trespasses, Entanglements, Forgiveness
- A Protest Lullaby Project
- Wandering in the Wilderness of COVID-19
- The Wonders of Dual “Virtual Church”
- God, Father (a Meditation on Forgiveness)
- Gardener’s Song
- The Doors of the Church are Open
- The Ripple Effects of Gratitude
- The Mixed Legacies of 9/11
- Coming (Back) from Away
- Labor
- MLK, Jr. Reweaving the Dreams
- Losing Our Leaves, Leaving Our Losses
- The Rich Man and Lazarus Revisited
- The Cave and Cliff Dwellers of the Vézère Valley
- Birthing a Book
- Falling into Grace
- A 49th State of Mind
- Factionalism, Fanaticism, and Mysticism
- Still Subtle and Various and Human
- The Spirit of Draining the Swamp
- Tribute to Leonard Cohen
- International Day of Peace, September 21
- The Firebrand and the First Lady
- My Cousin Bill
- Waitangi Day
- Thanksgiving by the Grand Canyon
- Amahoro
- Treetops (for Linda Swirczek)
- Bristlecone Pine
- Job’s Wife
- Jonah’s Dilemma (The Curse of Being Heeded)
- Sugar Mama
- Veterans of Domestic Elections
- Everyday Wonders
- Benny the Auto Mechanic
- On Sending (and Receiving) Holiday Cards and Letters
- Lessons from a Self-Healing Mat
- Liquid Amber
- On Being Granted Three Witches…
- Lettuce for All Seasons
- Last Day of Summer, Southern California
- Anniversaries
- Trees Resting
- Senior Crafting
- Gratitude for Late-Life Friendships
- A Post-Election-Day View
- Talleying Votes
- Goodwill
- What Difference Can a Letter Make?
- Using Tools Wisely
- Wild Berries
- Shoelaces and Scrunchies
- The Tulips Don’t Care about Pandemics…
- The Bus Seat Rule
- While We Were Away
- Playing for a Tie
- Poinsettia Day
- A Small White Button
- The Durability of Sisterhood
- The Shapes of our Scars
- Seeing with New Eyes
- Wedding Dress Trees: Of Bradford Pears (and Gnarled Old Oaks)
- Gathering Walnuts Along Walnut Street
- Experiments in Car-Less Living
- What We Pay Attention To Matters
- Aubrac’s Fields of Wild Jonquils
- A Lot About Aligot
- Groundhog
- Living at the Bottom of a Hill
- Why I’m Glad Our Granddaughter is a Girl Scout
- Quilted Dreams
- Mr. Whirligig
- Pizzlies and Grolars–Climate-Mediated Combinations?
- Didace’s Garden
- The Wrong Way to Make Mac and Cheese
- Eating Out in Twenty-Nine Palms: Honoring National Service
- Hauling Rocks Uphill
- Winter Beach Respite
- Battling the Squirrels
- Public-Private Partnerships
- For Appropriate Seasonal Seediness
- My Father’s Afghan
- Voyeur
- Language Lessons
- Ode to 40 (or 50 or 60)
- Filters Decay Slowly
- A Good Failure
- Rants
- Seven Harmful/Helpful Political Habits: 2022 Version
- The Dobbs Case: What Would Solomon Decide?
- Fear Sells, Until…
- On to Kyiv, and Then What?
- Choosing Life
- Stuck Between Levels
- Review: The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler
- The Rest of the Story
- McCarthy’s Ghost, Slavery’s Ghosts, Learning All the Verses
- Unacknowledged Cousins: “White” Womanhood Reimagined
- Checking Our Sources, Knowing Our Contexts
- Democracy Is Not an “Ism”
- Complicity
- The Flowers Have Not (Yet) Gone
- Efficiency and Resilience–Mutually Exclusive?
- Virtual Reality, Deepfakes, 1000 Hours Outside…
- Selective Memory and Finishing the Work We are In
- Building Lop-Sided Bridges
- Children’s Crusades and Adult Enablers
- Climate Change Hope
- Coercion
- Different Angels from Montgomery
- This Year’s February 14
- Networks and Hierarchies–Holding the Tension
- Old Years’ Resolutions
- Softening Hearts, Hardening Infrastructure, Widening Perspectives
- Dog Days Dreaming
- American Report Card: An F in the Three C’s
- Radio Mille Collines and the Limits to Free Speech
- Who Was Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and Why Does It Matter?
- A Parable for Our Time?
- The Other One Percent: Puerto Rico
- Living Lives that Matter
- International Women’s Day Thoughts
- White Privilege, the Capacity to Leave, and the World’s Changing Games
- Twitter Fodder
- The Myth of Objectivity: Choosing our Facts
- Practicing Gestational Politics
- Don’t Agonize, Organize!
- Lessons from Edgewood Avenue
- Other Things Some Older People are Thinking and Need to Say Out Loud
- Toward a New Consensus: Voting Thumbs Side
- The Whole Earth Generation(s)
- Putting the Puzzle Together
- After the Shooting Stops
- Voting and Praying
- Voting with Our Feet (and other essential body parts)
- Not-so-Wild Geese
- Musings of an Unrepentant Jailbird
- Tiananmen Remembered (1989)
- Border Stater
- Born After the War
- China W(a/o)nderings
- NC Chinese Lantern Festival, 2020
- Year of the Phoenix?
- Choosing Your Starfish
- The PRC at 70
- Pandas Playing Mahjongg–Enjoying the Cary Chinese Lantern Festival
- Is Anyone Really Stealing American Jobs?
- Dragon Kites on Tiananmen Square
- Where the Great Wall Meets the Desert
- Chinese Lantern Festival, An American Version
- Where the Great Wall Meets the Sea
- Chinese Girls in Frilly Dresses
- Welcoming the Year of the Rooster
- Sichuan’s Pandas, Preserved? (Part 2 of 2)
- Sichuan’s Pandas, Preserved? (part 1 of 2)
- Mid-Autumn Festival and Moon Cakes
- When the Earth Moved: Two Perspectives
- An Inconvenient Spotlight–Tiananmen 1989
- China Musings: Views from a Different Well
- The Dujiangyan Weir–Civil Engineering that Lasts
- The May 4 Movement
- Du Fu’s Thatched Cottage
- Earth Day in China
- Sandstorms, Yellow Air in Xinjiang
- Lantern Festival in Yangshuo, 2009
- Beasts of the Chinese Zodiac, More New Year…
- Spring Festival in Lipu
- Beach Time in Sanya
- Exotic Eats in China
- Puppies–Pets or Protein?
- Plum Blossoms in Winter
- Silent Night in China
- Mutton Dumplings for Winter Solstice
- Staying Warm, Chinese Style
- HIV/AIDS in China
- Simple Gifts
- Flickering Lights, Scary Stories, and Round Pumpkins
- Fall Foliage–“Huyang” Trees
- Better City, Better Life
- Music and Friendship
- Christmas by the Desert
- About
Jinny's Occasional Poems 