Greetings from Alison Wiley here in Portland, Oregon. I'm a writer/doer/thinker who lives happily by putting people, nature and God ahead of accumulating more stuff. Read more →
I was so dollar-poor in my 30′s that I lived illegally for five years in the loft where my landlord thought I was just running my small art company. I couldn’t afford a separate place to live. Even then, I was late with the rent each month. I feel bad about the dishonesty of that, and [...]
Tags: best investments·church·dollar-poor·God·habits·investments·joy·Mount Tabor park·nature·prayer·rural transit·stability
It was never intended to be an elaborate belief system. It was intended to be a disposition of the heart. — On Christianity, paraphrased from Diana Butler Bass. What helps you to come from your heart? It’s a more risky place to live than the head, because our hearts can get broken. Focusing on rules [...]
Tags: Christianity·church·Diana Butler Bass·non-mainstream·Paul Schultz·Revelle·sacrificial love·The Hunger Games
Diamond-Cut Life is coming up on its fourth anniversary, and this is its 420th post. I’m reflecting that some things in a person’s life change – how else would we grow? – while other things stay the same – how else would we have a core self? For example, I still love
Here in the Pacific Northwest where stunning, relatively well-preserved rivers, mountains and sweeping open spaces command our attention and a bit of reverence, it’s popular to be “spiritual but not religious”. These aren’t just words. For example, Oregon has the second lowest church attendance in the nation. In my experience, people’s announcement of being spiritual-but-not-religious [...]
Tags: atheist·church·Glacier Natinal Park·Missoula·spirituality·United Church of Christ
What do I feel like eating tonight? Shall I drop by the grocery store for it, or go out? That is a game I’ve often played in my life, a modern game common in developed countries because we have so many choices, so much food, so many restaurants. It hasn’t been proven, though, that the [...]
After writing in serious veins lately about beauty and battles, the most important number in the world, and our wrong-headed war in Afghanistan, I”m just breathing today. Enjoying simple pleasures, like a cup of excellent coffee (direct trade gets even better wages to the coffee farmers than fair trade, I understand). Portland Oregon, where I [...]
We spent our weekend outdoors in the dazzling sunshine building our chicken coop and interacting with our neighbors. (The first activity nicely fueled the second activity). About $400 and 25 person-hours later,we have what my housemate Evan cheerfully terms one expensive, half-assed chicken coop. (None of us claim to be highly skilled carpenters.) How did [...]
Tags: chickens·choir·church·Farmer Jon·green living·relationships·urban farming
It’s Easter morning! And warmish out! My pear trees and blueberry bushes are blossoming, our baby chicks are growing into leggy adolescents, and I’ll soon walk over to choir practice at Tabor Heights Methodist, where we’ll rehearse — with trumpet players! - for the Easter service. It’s all so climactic. . . . diamond-cut, really. [...]
Tags: church·David Korten·Easter·Great Turning·happiness·Jesus·Joanna Macy·joy·life·music·Oregon·religion
After being snowed and iced out the last two Sundays in a row, I finally get to go back to church this morning. My connection with God is even more important than usual to me right now because my mother-in-law Joan, in her ninth day at Providence hospital, appears to be dying. Her lungs are [...]
Tags: church·death·gari.baldi·God·life·love·relationships·religion
Every household has its own little culture. Within Thor’s and mine, I did the unthinkable last night: I drove (did not walk) the 3/10 mile from our house over to choir practice.
This was not even in the Prius or other hybrid we have yet to purchase, but in our 1993 Nissan Sentra. As I was stepping out the door to walk to the church, I realized there
Tags: biodiesel·carbon footprint·church·culture·Drive Less Save More·early adopters·hybrid·life·New Yorkers·Oregon·PC·politically correct·Portland·Prius·rain·RETC·Southerners
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