halloween:

The only day of the year when you are given the opportunity to be what you aren't and get rewarded for it.

name:

A gift of purpose and meaning--to recognize and call into being. The representation of isness.

Pablo Picasso

"It takes a long time to become young."

teaching:

Lighting a candle to show a path and then walking forward together. From mind to heart to hand, the activity of revelation.

life:

It is the "good morning dada" of my child in his falsetto voice setting the day to music.

Frederick Buechner

"...and stunted fig trees all twisted and muscular like wrestling dwarves."

in "Wunderjahr" from The Yellow Leaves: A Miscellany

parenting:

The gift we give to future generations. It is the tree we plant whose shade we will never know. It is the foundation of a great cathedral in which we will never worship. It is Moses at the edge of a promised land.

needs:

There is this great void in our soul that will swallow us whole by its gravitational pull to ourself.

exile:

The reality of Eden planted in our heart...life lived in the present through the future tense.

Albert Schweitzer

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only one's among you who will really be happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."

umbrella:

A bit like wisdom as it shields one from what is fallen and it allows you to get where you want to go while offering protection along the way.

virtue:

It is not self seeking and yet its outcome is the best self possible. It is the sister of wisdom, the cousin of courage; born of holiness.

Brian Aldiss

"When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults."

how:

The kinetic energy of the mind moving to the lips and hands and feet.

why:

A sign of intelligence and reason. In a word, meaning and purpose.

where:

A place of existence and reality of happening; which begs the question if there is nowhere?

when:

Past...Present...Future...it directs one's attention to that time that contains the who with the what at the where.

what:

It may be the sound of annoyance or the sound of intrigue. It is the signifier of something, anything.

who:

A personal word...maybe the most human of words for it incarnates the presence and existence of another - it calls to mind being and being seen.

George Orwell

[Orwell, observing the loss of religious faith in Europe (which he applauded), remarked]

"For two hundred years we had sawed and sawed and sawed at the branch we were sitting on. And in the end, much more suddenly than anyone had foreseen, our efforts were rewarded, and down we came. But unfortunately there had been a little mistake. The thing at the bottom was not a bed of roses after all, it was a cesspool full of barbed wire...It appears that the amputation of the soul isn't just a simple surgical job, like having your appendix out. The wound has a tendency to go septic."

quoted in an essay entitled "On The Grand Canyon Bus" by Philip Yancey from Christianity Today, September 2008 (p. 102)

dishes:

The opportunity to work and toil over the outcome of a fantastic meal. The delight that comes from putting things back in their place after they are well used.

commuting:

The schedule and day in, day out passing. It is the commotion of getting somewhere...longing to be somewhere else: this riding of bus or train or plane; even more, the riding of hope.

yell:

It is the geyser of the throat that erupts and scalds all in its vicinity.

T.S. Eliot

"No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone."

from his essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent

lie:

Pressing in like crushing rocks; this weight we willingly add to our psyche. My son has lied to me and weeps: the discipline as well as the transgression are a heavy burden indeed. I hold him and the breathing calms and we sat together in the relief of truth.

We harvest the bolder from the quarry of deception thinking we can handle it. We say to ourselves, "how much can it weigh?" But under the pressure of its actual weight the burden outweighs us. Or, we break the deception into a thousand smaller fragments and make it a burden in almost the same way.

orange:

It is the only color you can eat.

Albert Einstein

"The important thing is not to stop questioning.... It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity."

inspire:

The music of goodness, truth, and beauty transposed into the key of living.

laundry:

One of life's liturgies...the light and dark and rinse and spin of the day.

money:

It is fluid...how it is collected like rain in cupped hands yet slips through fingers. To worship it turns the devoted to stone, makes them an icon of greed. It is only worth its value when it is honestly earned otherwise it makes the ones that holds it a traitor to humanity.

Henry Blackaby

"Discontent stems from the sin of ingratitude and a lack of faith that God loves you enough to provide for all that you need."