Vintage Stone Slippers (circa 2010)
In Abraham Verghese’s novel, Cutting for Stone, the miserly, mythical Baghad merchant, Abu Kassem, wore tattered and torn...
Jo Page
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Jo Page
- Aug 14, 2018
- 2 min
Cape Ann
I think I don't vacation well. At least, not here. Not where I am now. Which is, ostensibly, on vacation. I think I know why. I've been...
Jo Page
- Jul 26, 2018
- 3 min
The Health of Planned Parenthood
Several years ago on successive Thursdays I congregated, along with other clergy and other supporters of their services, in front of...
Jo Page
- Jul 8, 2018
- 3 min
Watch Yr. Ps and Qs. And Save Your PTLs.
Please. If you want to show how holy you are or impress people with the sincerity and fidelity of your faith, just—please—stop peppering...
Jo Page
- Jun 12, 2018
- 3 min
Let ICE Help You Find Your Kids
If you can believe the incredible irony of this, U.S Customs and Immigration has recently distributed a flyer at detention centers across...
Jo Page
- Jun 2, 2018
- 4 min
Sabbath is Served
One of the peculiar things that has happened since I’ve been living alone, no longer married, the girls out of the house, no longer...
Jo Page
- May 24, 2018
- 3 min
Making Book
I have spent the last few months reading A Serious Book about Serious Books. Morning, Noon and Night: Finding the Meaning of Life’s...
Jo Page
- May 11, 2018
- 3 min
Wanting to Cross to Safety
It’s hard to say if recent personal events have freakishly affected my Netflix habits, but certainly I feel the weight of these times...
Jo Page
- Apr 26, 2018
- 3 min
Remote Mourning
Real parish life isn’t as tantalizing as PBS’ “Grantchester” (nor most clerics the eye candy of James Norton’s priest, Sidney Chambers), ...
Jo Page
- Apr 9, 2018
- 3 min
Domestic Gridlock
Now technically speaking, I do not live “off the grid.” Which is, I suppose, a good thing because I never intended to. That said, I never...
Jo Page
- Mar 23, 2018
- 3 min
Expiration Dates
In the interest of not offering any spoilers, I won’t name the brilliant and best-selling novel I just read--oops, too late!---set during...
Jo Page
- Mar 9, 2018
- 3 min
Not Dust. Not Earth. Ash.
“…faith begins at the point where atheists suppose it must be at an end. Our faith begins with the bleakness and power which is the night...
Jo Page
- Feb 21, 2018
- 2 min
The Acceptable Time
Lord, you can help when earthly armor fails us; You can save when deadly sin assails us. --hymnwriter Matthaus A. von Lowenstern,...
Jo Page
- Feb 11, 2018
- 3 min
Future Sex...Just in Time for Valentine's Day
When I was asked by the staff of the New York State Writers Insitute to introduce and moderate a discussion with Emily Witt of her book,...
Jo Page
- Jan 30, 2018
- 3 min
Designing Men
I grew up in a house full of women—my mother, my sisters, our dog--my father having died when I was nine. Like my own mother, I became a...
Jo Page
- Jan 19, 2018
- 3 min
Cruelest Month
Remember how T.S. Eliot in “The Wasteland” famously called April “the cruelest month”? Indeed, he did, complaining about lilacs “breeding...
Jo Page
- Dec 25, 2017
- 3 min
The Solace of Sunday Christmas (12.25.16)
When Christmas falls on a Sunday you can bet that the sanctuary, candle-gleaming and chock-full at the Christmas Eve service, will be...
Jo Page
- Dec 13, 2017
- 3 min
There's Something About Mary
Consider Mary. That Mary. As in the Virgin Mary.The Virgin Mary? Well, what does that even mean? When I think of “virgin” I think of...
Jo Page
- Dec 3, 2017
- 3 min
A Great and Mighty Wondrous Thanksgiving
It’s Monday of Thanksgiving week and I am sitting in the tidy cottage that is my older sister’s house on Cape Cod. We are planning to...
Jo Page
- Nov 17, 2017
- 2 min
Come, Ye Disconsolate
Tomas Moore (1779-1852) and Thomas Hastings (1784-1872) were from Dublin and Litchfield County, Connecticut, respectively, and there is...