This afternoon I went to talk with someone in hospice care, someone I just met, someone just a few years older than I am. I don’t know how to describe her except to say she is someone with real spiritual depth. I knew this because I could see how she made the nurses and health aides feel good just by being in her presence. She and I talked for nearly an hour, and though I couldn’t tell you what exactly we talked about, I still feel good from listening to her.

I took a walk down by the waterfront late this afternoon. It was already getting dark. A thought came to me as I was walking — I can only remember the shape of that thought, not any of its content except it was about something I saw and heard. My older sister, the writer, always carries a notebook around and would have written that thought down. But I didn’t write it down, and it got lost in all the mundane and even trivial thoughts about my job, about shopping, about how I don’t exercise enough.

My partner Carol read my blog the other day and gently mocked me for writing about trivia. She’s right, I do write about trivia. But that’s where I find the transcendent, that’s where my religious life unfolds. Some people need to see the face of a divine being, or have an out-of-body experience, but I’m fine just sitting at home doing nothing.