Terry Hershey Blog

Tag Archives: the little things

Delight and Pennies

While a young mother waits at a post-office-counter, her four-year-old daughter occupies herself with the opportunity for self-entertainment, exploring the lobby, looking, prattling, not an item left untouched. The girl finds a penny on the floor.  “Look momma,” she says proudly, “a penny!”  Her mother, busy with a clerk at the window, mumbles an acknowledgment.  [...]

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Secret of Life

This week I had an extra day in Washington DC. A perfect opportunity to literally “spend” a day. As I left the hotel, I told Mark, at the front desk, “I’m off to explore.” “Then do me a favor,” he said, smiling, “can you find me the secret of life?” “I’ll give it a shot,” [...]

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Blessed

In a memorable M*A*S*H* episode, there is a wounded bombardier who thinks he is Jesus.  The camp is mixed. Some say he’s crazy, most say he’s doing an act in order to get discharged from the Army. One person in camp believes him. Radar O’Reilly. It’s time for the man’s release. Radar walks out to [...]

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Wonder

What is sacred is what is worthy of our reverence, what evokes awe and wonder in the human heart, and what, when contemplated, transforms us utterly. -Phil Cousineau Late in her life, American poet and writer May Sarton was questioned about what she wanted to be  when she “grew up.” She replied: to be human. I like [...]

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New Year

New Year Resolutions vary from the clichéd (“I will get organized” –or at least buy an app to get organized), to the imaginative and visionary (“I hope to spend less than $1825 for coffee at Starbucks this year”). Me, I typically set the bar low, something akin to “This year I will stop licking frozen flag [...]

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Making Space

My friend tells me about a man who takes his son to movie matinees. That is not unusual. Except this: the boy, his son, is deaf. The man is accustomed to questioning. “Why do you do this to your son, if he cannot hear the movie?”  Or, “If your son can’t hear, what value is there?” [...]

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The gaps

“How shall I account for the two, or the ten, missing years on my résumé?  How should I explain the gap?”   These are these questions asked of Dr. Kimberley Patton, by students at Harvard Divinity School, fretful and uneasy in the application process for doctoral programs, or jobs in parish ministry.  In other words, [...]

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More Bridges

Two brothers, living on adjoining farms, fell into conflict. In forty years of farming side by side, sharing machinery, providing mutual support and assistance whenever needed, it is their first rift. But it doesn’t take much, does it? A conflict that begins with a small misunderstanding can grow into a major fracture. Weeks (spilling into [...]

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Porch Swing

In Losing Moses on the Freeway, Chris Hedges writes about his father.  “But what struck me about him most,” Chris writes, “as I grew older, is that he did not have to embrace difference.  Charming, good looking, endowed with an infectious sense of humor, it would have been easier to go along.  He could have [...]

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The Barber Shop

“You know Dad,” Zach is talking with his mouth brimful of cereal, “I think my life has been pretty full.” “Really?” I say to my son. “Yeah. I mean, think about it. I have actually held a Serval Cat. In my lap. I have touched a real NASCAR race car. I have been on an [...]

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do less. live more.