I'm Listening

3 days ago | angeladenker.substack.com | Angela Denker

Hi Readers,Well, I said the below last year - but what do you know - it’s true again this year! (And - I’m currently recuperating from a nasty upper respiratory virus/infection - so send some prayers for clear lungs + quick healing when you get a chance. Thank you!)Mother’s Day came fast this year! I’ve been a mom for 13 years now (if you count the time I was pregnant with my first) and that old adage of long days, short years, just gets more and more true all the time.

5 days ago | angeladenker.substack.com | Angela Denker

Hi Readers,I’ve been thinking today of the Bible reading from Luke 24, where two of Jesus’ disciples are walking down the Road to Emmaus, after Jesus has been arrested and sentenced to death by crucifixion. The Bible text says that as they walked, Jesus himself appeared and walked with them, but “their eyes were kept from noticing him.” Instead, the two are filled with grief, sadness, exhaustion, and lament. They tell this supposed “stranger” that Jesus has been crucified.

1 week ago | angeladenker.substack.com | Angela Denker

Hi Readers,As I write this, we are awaiting a potential severe spring storm in Minneapolis. We got this news right after my husband put out the deck furniture cushions, so we have impeccable timing, as usual. There’s an electricity in the air with an impending storm, as well as the barometric pressure changes that give so many of us headaches.

2 weeks ago | angeladenker.substack.com | Angela Denker

Hi Readers,I started out this morning feeling like today was a special, luxurious sort of treat. I didn’t have any appointments on the calendar between dropping off my youngest at school, and then taking him to an appointment at 3 in the afternoon. I knew today too that it was the last Tuesday of the month, the day when I plan to write a special Substack just between us - without a certain kind of agenda or plan.

2 weeks ago | angeladenker.substack.com | Angela Denker

Hi Readers, I’m writing to you the morning after Easter, in the wake of Pope Francis’ death, and I have to admit that I’m tired. It feels like we are always waiting for a moment to catch our breaths, and that moment never comes. I think the truth is that we can’t wait for those moments to come anymore. Instead, we have to prioritize them. We have to take them, insist upon them - as Jesus insisted upon meals and moments with his friends, even after the resurrection as he returned to earth.