Welcome to The Polly Papers, my reflections and meditations on the surprising, puzzling and unusual glimpses of the Spirit of God in the world. This audacious attempt to capture, in words, a glimpse of an elusive yet accessible being is expressed by a phrase from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke:
I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song. (link to full poem)In a way, it similar to decoding our spiritual DNA. Just as the body has its basic building blocks in the genes strung along a double helix, so I believe do we have a spiritual spiral linking all the material available for growing into God-essence. I hope that some of the pieces you will find in these pages will help you unlock your own spiritual DNA. (more)
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February 18, 2026The day had been long and arduous, bitter cold with a biting wind, too many errands and way too much traffic. I was dead tired and longing to get home although I still needed to pick up the book waiting for me at my local library. Having arrived shortly before closing, I picked up my book and was in the process of checking it out when I noticed a small girl, no bigger than a minute, holding an open box of Valentine chocolates and offering them to the librarians behind the counter. I turned to watch. She then came over to me and held out a gold foil-wrapped heart from her box.
“For me?” I asked her. She nodded.
“Thank you so much, that’s very nice of you. Can you tell me your name?”
“Grace,” she whispered.
“Thank you, Grace. That’s a beautiful name and it suits you perfectly! And shall I tell you why?”
Grace nodded.
“Because grace is about being gracious, thoughtful and kind and that’s exactly like you. You’re giving all of us a special treat today.”
Her box by now was almost empty. A man whom I guessed to be her grandfather stood nearby.
“She’s delightful,” I said. “You must be very proud.”
“I am indeed”, he replied. “It was totally her idea to do this.”
I unwrapped my gift. It was a dark chocolate heart.
Amazing, isn’t it, how one thoughtful gesture can be the moment that redeems your day? A moment of grace. […]
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February 10, 2026“Have your binoculars ready!
My neighbor called to me just after I had turned away from my bird-watching window, after I had finished my breakfast with the birds: the sprightly chickadees, hungry finches and the upsidedown feeder-feeding nuthatch. Right after I had turned on the computer to start writing.
“Have your binoculars ready.” He meant, I know, the eagles; to be watchful for the pair of eagles nesting downstream. Be ready for their fly-by outside my window. But It was time to write my post about early February; the season of the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolg, a Druid agricultural lunar sabbath welcoming returning warmth to the earth. Melded into the Christian Candlemas, or St.Brigit’s Day, the feast day honors the Druid Abbess Brigid of Kildare, goddess of the hearth and fertility. Definitely more than enough material for an article!
But I couldn’t settle, couldn’t start putting words on the screen. Something about his message wouldn’t let me go. It was in that word: “binoculars.” Bi-ocular, two eyes: an eye to see, yes, perhaps even eagles, and then a second eye, to see with the heart. Sometimes called in-seeing, one looks beneath, beyond the surface and into the heart. Into your heart, into my own. The kind of seeing that, paradoxically, calls not only on that metaphorical “second eye” but also doesn’t need to rely on sight.
“Have your binoculars ready.” Keep eyes open to all that passes by the window, yes, the beauty of it. And the eyes of my heart? Keep them ready, alert and aware of all that passes in and through and out. Imagine that downstream something else, far beyond the eagles’ nest something waits. Trust that my in-seeing heart-eye will be cast downstream so that I will one day know what is not yet known.
For it could fly by anytime.
I’ll have my binoculars ready. […]
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January 10, 2026Christmas is over. The angels, magi and shepherds have departed. Joseph, Mary and Jesus have gone back home to Nazareth. End of story. Yet, is it?
The Christmas carol, “Good Christian Friends, Rejoice”, proclaims “Christ was born for this!” But what is “this”? What does it mean on this chilly, gray day in January, 2026.
To me it means breaking a promise that I made to myself, and thus also to you, nine years ago, when I began writing this blog. That commitment stemmed from my years as a preacher; that I would never “take sides” politically, and that church and state would be kept separate.
I am breaking this promise now. I can no longer remain silent.
This morning I stood with at least a thousand people on an icy church lawn. We were there to mourn Renee Nicole Good, a young mother murdered last Wednesday in Minneapolis by the federal government; shot in her car by an agent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). By my government, our government. We sang “We Shall Overcome”, we listened as the names of everyone murdered by ICE were read aloud. Then we walked through our town center, carrying posters of resistance, protest and unbearable grief. We shall overcome, we vowed. Shall we? Will we? Can we? How long, O Lord, how long?
Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller was an early sympathizer of the right wing government in Nazi Germany in the 1920s and ’30s, but, after Hitler came to power, he spoke out against it. He was imprisoned in concentration camps from 1937-1945. Afterwards, he wrote these well-known words, which seem to have arisen from a repenting heart:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Neither am I a communist, socialist or trade unionist. I am not an immigrant. I am not a person of color. I am, instead, a wealthy, privileged straight white woman of impeccable Anglo-European Christian ancestry; in other words, a WASP. So they have not come for me…yet. Not yet. However, I am also a left-wing progressive, a social activist and a member of a liberal main-line church, committed to justice and the belief that “God shows no partiality”, that all people, all people are created equal. However, it’s not because I fear that someday they will “come for me”, it’s because, very simply, when someone is murdered in cold blood, by my government, it is long past time for me to speak out. That’s what Renee Nicole Good was doing when she was murdered. She and her wife came to the rally in solidarity with her neighbors who were being targeted by ICE.
Yes, Christmas is over. Which means our work has just begun. Because Christmas is not only about a baby and some lambs and angels. Christmas is about a time when a murderous king set out to kill all the baby boys in Judea because he was terrified of losing his kingship. King Herod was a puppet of the Roman Empire and you can bet he wanted to hang on to that power and privilege; hang on to all the wealth and adulation due him as a pawn of the ruling party. Herod saw threats everywhere. He was a weak, narcissistic sociopath, intent on slaying anyone and anything that stood in his way. That part of the Christmas story is sometimes called “The Slaughter of the Innocents”. That part of the story happened last Wednesday in Minneapolis.
The story of Christmas is for times like this. A story for everyone, of any or of no faith, that calls us to stand up, speak out and stop the slaughter of all the innocents. May we have the courage and conviction for times like this. […]
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January 6, 2026Many years ago, when my granddaughter was a toddler, she had a Playmobil Nativity set: plastic shepherds, a crib with hay, a barn. When her grandfather and I arrived for Christmas, she couldn’t wait to show it to us. Starting with her favorites; the lambs, the cows and angels, and finally, the stars of the show: Mary, the baby and… Uncle Joe!
No one knew how she decided that the the man standing by the manger was Uncle Joe, but all in all, it’s not a bad solution. I like to think that this small child had figured out what scholars and preachers had been debating for centuries. “Mmm” she might have wondered, “Mommy and Daddy told me that Jesus was God’s son, so this guy who’s hanging around on the sidelines not doing much of anything, must be Jesus’ uncle.” Thus, Uncle Joe he was and that was that.
It’s not a bad solution, but in the long run, probably not the case. So who is he? Who is this loyal, devoted man, the man who stood by his pregnant, not-yet-wife?
Joseph was a man who paid attention to his dreams. Joseph believed that his dreams were messages from his God, that his dreams were, as John Sandford described, “God’s forgotten language.”
When he learned that his bride-to-be was pregnant and resolved to quietly divorce her, he had a dream in which he believed God spoke to him. “Do not divorce Mary, for the child she is carrying is the child of God.”
Joseph did marry Mary and the baby was born. Soon afterwards, Joseph had another dream. An angel appeared saying, “Take Mary and the baby far away, for King Herod, having learned from the wise men that the King of the Jews had been born, was plotting to kill all baby boys under the age of two. Once again, attending to his dream, Joseph took Mary and the baby down to Egypt where they stayed until, through another dream, Joseph learned that Herod was dead and it was safe to return. Although, as it turned out, it wasn’t, since Herod’s son had similar murderous intentions. And so, right on time, Joseph had another dream when he was told to take Mary and the baby north, to Galilee where they settled in Nazareth.
Now we might naturally wonder whether Joseph really had that series of life-saving dreams, or whether it was simply a convenient literary device for Matthew’s gospel to move the story along and ensure the family‘s safety. I believe it doesn’t really matter. Because the point of this story is to tell about the man who kept his family safe.
Joseph was Jesus’ father. In whatever way we understand Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb; whether Joseph was his stepfather, his foster father or his adoptive father, or even his biological father, he did what a good father always does. He protected his child.
I believe it was the Swiss child psychiatrist Alice Miller who wrote something along these lines: “How did Jesus grow up to be the loving, righteous healer and prophet, the truly good man that he was? Because he had a father named Joseph, who raised him as if he were the son of God.”
Today is Epiphany in the Christian calendar, the day when we celebrate the three visitors from the East who recognized the baby as the herald of a new age, a heavenly king. Had it not been for Joseph, not only would that child have been murdered by Herod’s soldiers, he might never have been born.
Funny, isn’t it? that Mary, the baby, those cute fuzzy lambs, the night-watch shepherds and the glorious angels all take center stage at Christmas but there is one bit part, a walk-on player who doesn’t get much press. Yet he is the one who guaranteed that the story didn’t end there in the barn: Uncle Joe, ever stalwart, faithful, vigilant and present as the young boy grew into the one we call Savior. […]
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December 10, 2025I don’t string popcorn
any more, with cranberries;
or bake sugar cookies, make
gingerbread houses.
My tree is small,
the right size for the pot
on the shelf
with a few,
my few precious ornaments.
Children and grandchildren
grown, some flown
long past Santa.
My Buche de Noel won’t be fancy.
No candies that once
small, sticky fingers made so.
No one will wake before dawn;
rush to the hearth,
grab stockings,
eat too much chocolate.
Still, Christmas will come
Ready or not.
Like the first time
when no one was ready.
Not for a child,
a small, squalling child
with a too-young mother.
Yes, Christmas will come
on another long night.
We’ll wake once again.
We’ll wake up again,
as it’s been every year.
We’ll wake up with hope,
with an age-old hope;
longing once more
for peace. […]
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December 2, 2025I dreamed a dream a while ago. It went like this:
I had been invited to a TV talk show. Neither the topic, nor the host, nor any other invitees were mentioned. I walked into a room with lots of chairs and was told that I could sit anywhere. In some of the other chairs were business-suited men, some folks who kept hugging the host and many “crunchy granolas”; mostly youngish women with long straight hair wearing gypsy skirts and peasant blouses. There were farmers in overalls and scientists with pocket pen protectors.
We soon discovered that we were seated in a large circle around a thick-trunked, twisted-branched olive tree, a “Van Gogh” tree. It appeared that we were there to talk about that tree, something about grafting or trimming. Suggestions came readily from people that I soon realized knew trees well; botanists, arborists and tree-huggers. Meanwhile, we were eating the olives, spitting out the pits and offering them back to the tree. It felt mythic, like an ancient pagan ritual. The discussion went on and on and on with no clear resolution. I stayed silent since I was not one of those experts. Finally, there was a lull. I raised my hand and spoke.
“Maybe we need to think about this from the point of view of the tree.”
I have learned that it is wise to follow your dreams; that is, to attend to the message they may be sending you. According to Jungian author John A. Sanford, dreams are “God’s forgotten language.” Like the visions found in all sacred texts, dreams connect us to a living spiritual world, offering healing and a fuller understanding of our life’s path. They invite us to live with them, live into them, grow into them.
Have you had dreams that stayed with you, so vivid that you can still see the colors, the setting, the players many weeks later? A dream that you believe reveals a truth for you. One to ponder, write down, discuss.
My dream is like that. It has a message for me, of that I am sure. During the past year, I have immersed myself in books about trees, learning that they are sentient beings, communal and communicative. And, without a doubt, our last best hope for cleaning up the mess we’ve made of the air. Diana Beresford-Kroeger wrote an account of her life’s journey with trees. Her book gives me hope that we will find a way forward. Perhaps it’s due in part to her title, To Speak for the Trees, that I had my dream. I believe that in continuing to meditate on it, I will be led, somehow and in some way, the speak for the trees, to be part of a solution that evolves not from me or any of the experts, but from the point of view of the tree, whatever that means. And I do already have a glimmer, a felt sense of what that may be. I’ll keep you posted.
(And by the way, if you have any idea why so many people kept hugging the host, let me know!)
*Wm. Shakespeare, The Tempest
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November 3, 2025“It’s time to make the witches brew!” I called upstairs to my young granddaughter. She raced down and into the kitchen. “What’s first,” I asked, “what’s the first thing we should get?” “The blood, Grandma, the blood; we have to start with the blood.” She dove into the refrigerator and grabbed the tomato juice. “Okay, good, pour in lots of it. We need to fill the pot.”
“Now what should I get Grandma?” “Mmm, perhaps the guts, don’t you think?” “Okay, I’ll get them. I know exactly where they are.” I silently congratulated myself for remembering to save some leftover spaghetti from last night’s supper, since I was pretty sure Madeline would want to make the brew again this year. Into the pot went the “guts.” “I know what’s next,” she laughed, “the eyes!” Climbing onto a stool to reach the counter, my eager, young witchy chef grabbed a fistful of grapes, climbed down and dumped them in the pot.”
It was then time to stir the pot and say the special words. I handed Madeline a big wooden spoon and we began to chant; “Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.” Stir, cackle, cackle, stir, cackle!
It looked ready yet it felt like something was missing. What was it? Madeline, of course, knew right away. “Grandma, we forgot the heart! We need the heart. It’s the most important part of all.” Out the screen door with a bang, Madeline took off, jumping from the porch and running down the path to the garden. She searched and searched and searched some more until, at last, she found it. Nestled under yellowing leaves, only one remained. She plucked it off the stem and headed back to the kitchen. Her little hands, stained red, held it out. “Here it is, here it is, Grandma. I found it.” Then she dropped that perfect, red, ripe strawberry into the pot.
She had found the heart.
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October 27, 2025I shall write about the humble pumpkin seed.
But is it something that you’d really want to read?
It’s a thing so very tiny
and it isn’t even shiny
so I ask you, is there really any need?
But to the pumpkin, well, that’s another matter.
For then I would extol, I’d charm and flatter.
“Your Orangeness ,“ I would say,
are you having a nice day?
I’ve noticed you are getting so much fatter.
While you rest upon the ground in all your glory,
won’t you tell me if you please your whole life story?
And please include it all
from last spring until this fall.
I promise I will never find it boring.”
Then the pumpkin spoke up loud enough to hear,
“I will tell you what you wish to know, my dear.”
“Oh please do, I soon agreed,
and you must include the seed.
like your friend the corn, I really am all ears!”
“Disparage not the seed” the pumpkin told.
“For how did you think I grew to be this old?
The seed was my beginning,
which is how I now am winning
over hearts; with my glorious, glowing, gold.”
And so, the pumpkin went its way and I went mine.
and I thought about a world that’s so sublime
that a seed so very small
will grow beauty, round and tall.
Hooray for life! it’s really quite divine. […]
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October 5, 2025Going about my errands in town last week, I popped into one of my favorite shops. I was intent on finding care package items for my granddaughter and was sure I would find most of what I wanted there: some necessities and some silly stuff to power her through mid-term exams. For once, I had nothing pressing me for time, which made it extra enjoyable just to wander, pick something up, put it down, pick up another gizmo and thus gather a bagful of goodies. As I was browsing in the sweet treats section, I saw a small sign, humorously and gently worded, reminding small hands to pay for their selections before leaving. I must have smiled-out-loud as I read it since the shopkeeper appeared beside me, saying that it was only the rare child that needed a reminder; but the reason it had been posted was this:
Once there was a young child who came to the shop to buy some penny candy, picking up, putting back and finally selecting one. It happened that, as the candy disappeared up the child’s sleeve, the shopkeeper had been looking, but said nothing as the child left the shop. The shopkeeper recognized the small offender, whose mother was a friend. The mother was called later that day, not to accuse but simply to report the incident, believing that the mother would want to know.
Weeks, maybe a month or more went by, the event mostly forgotten. Then one day, a letter arrived in the shop.
I knew it was wrong to take the candy and I feel bad about what I did. I want you to know that I am very sorry. I had gotten in with a group of kids who were a bad influence on me. Because you called my mother and didn’t scold me or arrest me, I have thought a lot about that. I have learned a lot since then. Your phone call made me realize that I want to be better person from now on.
A brief phone call, a few words voiced not in anger but with kindness. Sometimes that’s all it takes to turn a life around. A simple gesture, an outstretched hand or just a smile can make a world of difference. Unlike the shopkeeper, we may never know what happened afterwards. What you tossed off as a casual remark, when I offered a cup of tea, what any of us do or say in passing could turn the corner for someone else.
I believe there are lots of stories like the shopkeeper’s tale. I suspect that you too have lived them, as giver and as recipient of the gift. Now, more than ever, is the time to keep creating more, and more, and more.
What story will you create today? […]
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September 13, 2025I’m a singer. No, let me qualify that statement. I am an amateur, “amateur” in the best sense of the word, which is, I am a lover of singing. I have been singing since childhood; in choirs, in choruses, in home-grown musical theater, and, of course, in the shower. In our choir we often warm up with this phrase, “I love to sing”, moving up and down the scales. Not only do I love to sing, but I also love the way it makes me feel, the way it lifts my spirits. I am more alive, filled with more energy, I am more “me.” One of our choir members put it this way: “It’s my weekly therapy.”
Since before Covid, I had been taking voice lessons from a teacher whom I met through my granddaughter. When Alex was a young girl, six or seven years old, I took her often to her piano and voice lessons; to her “Miss Lilly.” As I sat and listened, I was impressed with Miss Lilly’s approach to teaching a young, shy girl. It was so unlike my memory of my long-ago teacher, the kind who, I feared, although it never did happen, would rap my knuckles with a ruler when I messed up a scale, which was most of the time. I was tense, ashamed and always afraid.
Not Miss Lilly. She couldn’t have been more encouraging. Never did a cross word pass her lips, never did I hear her use the words “mistake” or “wrong”. When I discovered that she also taught adults, I took a leap and decided to pick up voice lessons that I had abandoned many years earlier.
Then Covid hit. We continued our lessons on Facetime, making the best of it. I could still feel the energy of our connection across the miles and still looked forward to that hour every week.
And yet, it wasn’t until last Thursday, over five years later, when I went to her house for our first post-Covid lesson, that I realized what had been missing. I am tempted to say it was miraculous: to be there together in the same space. There was space to spread my arms (dare I say “wings”), to move my body and sing to the trees outside, to all the space in the room with full voice, as I had not sung in years. Not so freely, never so joyfully as in any of our Facetime lessons. I think even Miss Lilly would agree! The sense of a delightful and foolish fancy that the next day I could walk onto a Broadway stage!
Ridiculous, of course, for this eighty-plus woman to imagine. But then, what is life all about, anyway, if not, as Mary Oliver has written, “wild and precious”? Which is what singing is for me.
Yet, that’s not all. Being together in the same room made all the difference. Happily, in the intervening years since Covid shut us all down, we had the advantage of Facetime so that we could continue my lessons. Access to the internet and its many uses managed to keep all our small and large connections in place. We could work, learn and socialize from home. It kept me connected to Lilly, which allowed lessons to continue.
With also, I began to realize, an enormous loss: the absence of shared space, of seeing the same trees out the windows, and of breathing in the room together. Now we could notice subtle shifts that aren’t visible on camera and feel each other’s energy. When at one point I struggled with a challenging situation, her gentle touch comforted me. In sum, I knew that the five years on Facetime had deprived me of the power in simply being together, in the same space at the same time.
Companionship, community, togetherness; these are the basic building blocks of a meaningful life. Martin Buber, a 20th century Austrian religious thinker and political activist, introduced the concept of God, not as a remote Being, but as One that exists in relationship with us. Buber called it the “I-Thou” relationship and, by extension, that all human life finds meaning in our relationships. All of us share the same space in our sacred cosmos.
We are born in and for relationship. We are molded not only by our birth and heritage but by who we become in relationship with other people. Being together, as I rediscovered last Thursday, is life-giving in a way that no Facetime, Zoom, Instagram or all the many social media choices can ever imitate or supplant.
Thanks be that we are put on this earth to share life with one another.
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