Nancy Linenkugel

What is retirement? Living a sleepy life and relegating oneself to being forever in the background? I think women today and certainly sisters deserve something else and something better.

Once upon a time, there was a country having 50 states, a District of Columbia and five territories. And in the face of the recent months' troublesome lies and destruction, the mottoes gathered to uplift democracy.

COVID-19 is teensy particles that go all over and spread, just like glitter. An anonymous description I read is this: "Picture us around a table, making individual crafts. One of us is using glitter. How many projects have glitter?" (They all do, since glitter spreads. Everywhere.)

Demographics don't matter in a roundabout. Not wealth or race or political party or creed. We're all just cars united in the brief activity of negotiating an intersection.

A job interview question sparked a lively conversation about imagining ourselves as functional kitchen appliances.

St. Francis wrote "The Canticle of the Creatures" in the early 13th century; 795 years later, I joined him in thinking about the night sky in its changelessness and with its "precious and beautiful" stars.

Handel's "Messiah" was first performed at Easter in Dublin 278 years ago. It stands today an incomparable work, a total experience — not a theatrical show or a performance just for entertainment. Its portrayal of the life of Christ through Scripture set to music just gets into your soul.

One is violence-based, one is not. Recently an acquaintance asked me what it was like to be a nun. I said jokingly, "Religious life is a lot like the military except we don't carry guns."

Imagine being gold. While you would be appreciated and revered by many just for the prestige of owning you, it would take effort to keep delivering on the golden properties. Wouldn't it get tiring to always be shining? To always be unchanging?

My ability to touch type doesn't mean that I never type a wrong letter, but I can chug along fairly accurately. Sometimes the typos lead to further ponderings.

"And if there really is a tornado, you heard it here first, so be careful," my colleague warned. "But here's a question for you: Who would you like your house to fall on? You know, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz."