I’m usually celebrating the last of the peonies this time of year with poems and pitcherfuls of these astonishing beauties filling the old porch. Do you ever get over the wonder of a peony? Oliver’s “beauty the brave, the exemplary, blazing open…eager to be wild and perfect for the moment before they are nothing, forever.”…

I’m early for the third service so I sit with a fresh little donut hole and half-cup of coffee in the foyer, watching the full sanctuary empty. It’s barely held them all, these animated bubbly ones, for the popular 10:00 Sunday morning service. It’s my first time back in a while. First time without him.…