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Imaginary friends

Lynne Baab • Sunday November 23 2014

When I was three years old we lived in a neighborhood with very few children, so I created my own friend. My imaginary friend played with me and my Raggedy Andy doll every day. We drank tea together at the little table my parents bought for me. My imaginary friend got me through that year. When I was four and we moved to a new place, I jumped into friendships with real life children.

Characters in well loved novels function like imaginary friends in my life today. After a busy work day, I like nothing better than to curl up with a...

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Grace gifts versus guilt-inducing obligations

Lynne Baab • Monday November 17 2014

I’ve been speaking and writing about the Sabbath for almost a decade, but I recently had an aha experience about Sabbath keeping in my life and its connection to other spiritual practices.

Much of my speaking and writing flows out of my own Sabbath observance, which is close to its 35 year anniversary. When we were young adults, my husband and I lived in Israel for 18 months. Our apartment was in a Jewish neighborhood in Tel Aviv, so everything was closed on the Sabbath day. Everything. We didn’t have a car, and the busses didn’t run, so it was a day...

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Words matter

Lynne Baab • Sunday November 9 2014

My husband remembers her as peaceful and serene. I remember her as a contented woman with a cheerful, almost fey, personality. Remembering her makes me smile because being around her was a joy.

Lately I’ve been thinking about this particular woman. We knew her when we were in our thirties. Perhaps I’ve been thinking about her because I’m so concerned about the lack of civility in public discourse today. I wrote about that last week.

Words shape us. Words give us lenses through which we view the world. We need to be so careful with words because of their impact on the us...

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Of spiders and civility

Lynne Baab • Saturday November 1 2014

On a crisp, clear morning in early summer, I stepped onto the back porch and saw an odd movement on the railing. I looked closer. Dozens of tiny spiders were swarming on the top surface of the railing, emerging from one of the fuzzy spider egg sacks that had been attached to the railing all winter. One by one the baby spiders threw up a circle of silk an inch or two in diameter, and the soft breeze carried them away.

I was transfixed. I had heard that baby spiders dispersed from their egg sack in this manner, but I had never...

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