I do not know how it happens, but I keep running into angels. There I am, going about my day, feeling like I need a lift, and voila someone says just what I needed to hear. Or the right song plays on the radio. Or I meet some stranger who lays some deep wisdom on me and then I never see them again. I suppose I could consider these just happy accidents of life. Maybe they are.

So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able Lighting trees in darkness, learning new ways from the old, and Making sense of history and drawing warmth out of the coldDar Williams The Christians and the Pagans

The holidays are coming and this is the first set of them without a certain beloved someone in your life. You have mourned the passing of a parent, a grandparent, a spouse, a sibling, a friend or close relative. Someone who used to be a big part of the holiday season died this year. And now the holidays are looming like the crest of a huge ocean wave, threatening to take you and your holiday memories under with it. What do you do? How do you walk that perilous shoreline of grief while everyone around you seems to have an intact family, with everyone alive and happy?

We've all attended Thanksgiving dinners when the host and/or hostess has asked us to list those things for which we are most thankful. I always groan inside when that happens, dreading the thought of looking foolish or overly sentimental. I mist up easily. I cry at good commercials. Hallmark ads usually get to me. Ditto the ads for adopting pets. So, being asked to list my gratitude items makes me fear blubbering out loud in front of someone's Aunt Sadie or Grandpa Howard.

It's almost that time of year again--"The Holidays"--and whether you celebrate Christmas (the cultural or the religious variety), Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Pancha Ganapati, or any other lovely holiday that I've neglected to mention, gifts are probably involved. In my opinion friends, it's time to get your craft on!Crafting gifts expresses care, makes a smaller impact on our world and our wallets, and just generally makes a person feel hygge. How does crafting promote soulcare?

My family is German. My grandmother always made holiday stollen, which is bread filled with raisins, jellied fruits, cinnamon and other spices.

Hatred creeps in on little steps, establishing itself like a cancer, a cell at a time. Inch after inch is surrendered until feet are gone, then yards, then more until, finally, the streets run red with blood. Every tolerated incursion becomes a foothold for hatred. Many small incursions had been taken in Germany in the early days of Hitler's despotic rule. These led to Kristallnacht. (The Night of Broken Glass). Seventy years ago, Kristallnacht occurred.

 I was going to talk about the rather chilly racial climate in Toronto post-presidential election, but this piece caught my eye. Sex columnist Dan Savage opined over the demise of Proposition 8 in California -and guess who is accused of its downfall?

Before we know it, Thanksgiving will be hurtling full-speed at us all, and with it the usual flurry of cleaning and shopping and cooking and inviting. Many families have a custom of going around the table and having each person give thanks for something of value in his or her life. Some folks are happy to do that, some uneasy. But everyone manages to find something for which to be thankful. How could they not with such bounty spread out before them?

With a modicum of luck, the 2008 election season will end tomorrow. That said, I've been wondering what on earth I will do to fill the time formerly consumed by election obsessing, and now I have the answer: I can obsess over the holidays. Whether there's a certain special conservative feminist or liberal feminist in you life, what are the perfect gifts in these economically challenging times?

On Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, we remember our loved one's who have gone before us and the saints who have inspired us. (Sometimes they are even one in the same.) This year I invited bloggers to take some time to remember dear souls. A number of you responded, sending me your links.

I just got off the phone with a dear friend. We both live in my hometown, the town in which I spent many a fine Halloween night like this night. K. called me because something happened on her street -- a street that serves as a short cut between two more major arteries, a street where residents have been begging for a stoplight. She was sitting outside at the outdoor firepit with neighbors, having wine and giving candy to Trick or Treaters. It was a crisp and lovely autumn New England night. Then they heard screeching tires.