Out of the Fog

Meditations for Believers and Skeptics

The meditations in Out of The Fog range from a riff on Dr. Seusss song, Waltzing with Bears, to a serious discussion of Albert Schweitzers theology of reverence for life. We learn from such diverse role models as Jesus and Nemo (as in the fish Nemo). We celebrate the glories and agonies of the seasons in New England as well as a Wisconsin winter that rivaled the worse snows of Maine. We face the dark side of humanity. We are reminded that there truly are good people making a difference in the world. We are asked questions about our own spiritual lives. We ponder ways of creating a peaceful world. We are taught by children, dogs, cats, seashells, gardens; the sacredness of the every day is lifted up. We are asked to think of what our children really need from us. We are reminded to rest in the grace of the world. We are challenged to act for what we believe in. We are given hope in life and in ourselves and along the way we laugh often.

Excerpt from Out of the Fog

I miss a fireplace. A working fireplace. Or rather, a fireplace of delights and dreams and real logs, real fire. I grew up with a fireplace in our living room, not used for heat, but for warmth, beauty, visions, friendliness. We carefully cleaned the fireplace each Christmas Eve, so Santa would not be covered in ash. On Christmas Day, we lit the fire using as kindling the few Christmas wrappings my mother deemed unsalvageable for another year. The fireplace crackled, snapped, and exuded good cheer all December 25th and New Years as it did on Thanksgiving, and on snowy January, February, and March days and evenings.

The fire removed the chill of fog in fall and spring, and in the hurricane became briefly a working fireplace, for heat, for light, for cooking, most of all, for the vision of coziness amidst the tempests roar. Even in summer, when the days turned damp and shivery, the fire would be lit and wed gather in its glow for fun and games. I still have the old wire popcorn popper we jiggled above the flames, waiting with bated breath for that first distinctive POP and then in exultation as the kernels exploded in a delicious cacophony of pows! I have lost years ago the wire marshmallow and hot dog toasters that the bold thrust into the flames (those of us who liked blackened marshmallows and hot dogs that split, taking the risk of losing them to the fire god) and the more genteel held with tense concentration hovering over the embers for perfectly browned outside, sumptuously melted inside, marshmallows. I remember my thirteenth birthday an icy, wind-whistling, February night when ten teen girls toasted and roasted and tried to scare each other silly with ghost stories as the fire died slowly down and the room grew dark until mother returned with hot chocolate and in her matter of fact manner stirred up the fire with a poker, adding a new log for good measure, breaking the spell of titillating terror. We turned to giggling over riddles, jokes, and songs featuring a lot of mindless alliteration.

I remember the dinner parties as an adult when talk would turn from children to gossip to politics to God somehow the fire drew us into an intimacy and warmth that went beyond the heat upon our faces. I remember so many faces, some grown, some gone, but all faces that turned more friendly around the fire, that gentled into peace, sharing the best of themselves in the steadfast glow.

If you have such a fireplace, invite your friends over, stockpile wood for the storm, or light a log alone and listen to the fires song. If, like me, your fireplace is in a room long gone from you, remember those of your past and those who shared them, and be thankful. Remember also those who have sat with you beside all the fires of your life, those who need no fireplace of bricks and mortar to laugh with you, and eat with you, and share your fears and delights. The fireplace may no longe