This afternoon my husband, two grandchildren and their babysitter drove into central Connecticut to cut down our Christmas tree. The little house above holds a wood stove, hot chocolate and friendly people to warm up with after trekking around outside in frigid weather looking for the perfect tree.

Now clearly with five people exploring acres of trees the task of settling on just one takes a while. Any pick had to be unanimously approved(whose idea was that? oh yeah-mine). Many were too tall or too wide to fit in the corner of our living rooms. Others were lopsided(according to a veto vote) or scraggly(in the eye of another veto vote) or crooked(my veto). The babysitter added the helpful tip that presents needed to fit under the tree, eliminating ones with boughs to the ground. Finally the cold won out and we all agreed that one tree was just fine. I headed for the warming hut while the others took turns with the saw(helpfully provided by the farm.) The place had a device to squish the tree into netting so it could go in or on the car. This year’s went on the car since the back of the van had passengers.

Many people we know have fake trees. They don’t call them fake of course since that is derogatory. But we lived in Oregon for many years and they were called fake, looked down on, and generally scorned and mocked. After all, we were The Evergreen State and needed to stay faithful. Fortunately our town picks up discarded real trees curbside after Epiphany Sunday and chips them into yard bark, available for residents to pick up for landscaping. So a farmer makes some money in the winter, we have the smell of a real tree, and the tree gets usefully recycled.

We will be back at “Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree Farm”(its real name) next December to repeat the search.

As I mentioned when writing about Harry Potter, I often listen to books, especially fiction. This habit started when my daughter lived several hours away. I would listen to books on cassette tapes from the library on my long drive. But I still preferred to read books on paper. My next car didn’t have a cassette drive, so I took to listening to satellite radio instead. My book listening days were over I thought.

Years later I bought an IPod and learned to download music. The local library also offered a way to download books for free. Intrigued by the possibility, I tried it. I had always believed I read too quickly to be patient as a book was read to me, but I liked it more than I thought I would.

But the best feature of audio books turned out to be bedtime harmony. My husband goes to bed a couple of hours before me since he rises very early. I could read downstairs and miss his company, or I could spend two hours awake in the dark next to him. Neither was very appealing. But audio books saved my marriage(not really, but I like the sound of that as an advertisement.) Now we get into bed together, turn out the lights and he sleeps while I listen to my book. Now about his snoring!!

I was born long after the Harry Potter series, and my children were past the Harry Potter stage when the books came out. My older grandchild has read all seven books, totally a gizillion pages it seems. I was happily staying Harry Potter ignorant until we decided on a family vacation this February to Orlando, Florida where my daughter has a training. The kids are dying to go to Universal Studios Orlando, home of—you guessed it-The World of Harry Potter.

I could spend hours touring the Wizarding World, but I would have no idea of what the excitement meant. So I decided to break down and actually read the books for myself. Since I listen to many fiction texts instead of reading them in print, I downloaded the first volume last night and am a third of the way through it. While I doubt I will have the stamina to listen to probably 60 hours to get through the series, I thought I could at least start.

Reader, I married him. Not really, but I always wanted to use that line from “Jane Eyre.” What is true is that the book delights me, taking me back to the time I easily entered into the world of wizards, magic, flying and good and evil in combat. And I hope to be able to scream with joy when we visit Harry’s wizarding world.

Here the neighbor boy and I think about interacting over a pan. I am not sure if I have just removed it from him or if he is about to grab it from me. At any rate, it shows that all our lives making friends requires both give and take. An old camp song goes,”Make new friends, But keep the old, One is silver, But the other gold.” I have been reflecting on this lately.

We moved 3000 miles away from my circle of friends 17 years ago. But my closest friends are still those I made then. Fortunately we can talk for free now that long distance rates have plummeted. We can even see each others’ faces when we talk, though no one wants to look at the other early in the morning, so we don’t. Fortunately also, each friend has come out several times for long visits or trips together.

But while I remain committed to making new friends, in those 17 years I have managed to really connect with only two women. It turns out that making friends in one’s 60’s and now 70’s is a lot more complicated than just saying, “Let’s be friends.” I was encouraged yesterday by a long lunch with a new friend-to-be. It would be lovely to have a new friend. But it took at least ten years to really establish deep friendships in the past. So I hope that it is still possible. It’s worth the effort for sure.

The Puritans of New England found a way to publicly shame transgressors of their standards. They put people in the public square in this device seen above. Passersby could scold, berate or shame the offenders. I remember learning of this in school and being very grateful that this practice was extinct.

The other day at the gym I noticed a headline on a television about “fat shaming.” Because the mute was on, I have no idea what the story was about. However, it made me realize that in our internet obsessed, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram bathed culture we have managed to reinstitute public shaming. From the woman who took a picture of another woman in a locker room and posted it saying the woman was “disgustingly fat,” to the refusal of a waitress to serve a member of the White House press office, we have managed to use public shaming to wound others once more.

Shaming others seems to be a great way to feel superior. “At least I would never(fill in the blank) like that person. We have found ways to shame others for their looks, their opinions, their religious beliefs and their language. We can act as informants without even leaving home, by just snapping a picture and posting it. We can look at magazines at the checkout stands of the grocery store which take delight in shaming celebrities.

We can maintain that we are far removed from our Puritan forebears, but we delude ourselves. Shaming is cowardly, whether done in person or on line. Let’s call it out when we hear it. But let’s not shame the person who’s doing the shaming. How about simply “that isn’t very kind?”

Years ago I took a “spiritual gifts” quiz that was to evaluate where my skills would be of most use at church. I scored very low on something called “hospitality,” mostly I think because it confused working on luncheons with genuine graciousness, a better word for the virtue of welcoming. I have often been confused myself about graciousness, believing it had something to do with the dinner parties of my parents.

I believe, however, that graciousness comes from the heart and is not the same as entertaining. It is a welcoming approach to others, an invitation to draw close and share their presence. Being polite is certainly a good trait drilled into us from our childhood. Of course we should not call names, shun others, slam doors in their faces or demean their beliefs. But graciousness towards others partners with humility. It recognizes that we are all “strangers in a strange land” and all could use a welcome smile.

Graciousness seems to  me to be the best response to the homeless I meet on the streets. I try to make eye contact and acknowledge the person’s humanity. I will probably not invite them for dinner, but that doesn’t diminish my gracious gesture. And when I encounter people in my life I really struggle with, I hope to move from polite acknowledgement to a genuine welcome. I will need a little more forbearance to get there!

I have been getting stronger at my local gym for the past three years. I started going when I was 68, and I had worked most of the time with one trainer, Jen. I loved her spirit, her encouragement and her ability to accommodate whatever joint was squeaking on any given day. But last week she moved to take a better position in the company. I was scheduled to work with a new trainer for the first time this morning. I get attached to people, whether the dentist, the beautician or, in this case, my trainer. I don’t like getting to know new people. Apparently I also presume the worst about any change. So it was with some trepidation that I met with Colin this morning.

Much to my surprise, I had a great time working out with him as my new trainer. Yes, he is different from Jen. But it turns out different isn’t always worse. Change isn’t, despite my firmly held beliefs, always bad.

I guess you can teach old dogs new tricks! Or new ways to work out.

In 1967 I moved into a large house with 15 other undergraduate girls. I was the only sophomore let in because I had moved in with a junior. The house had a large kitchen and one bedroom off the kitchen. The rest of us were upstairs on the second and third floor. Jane Britton, a senior, lived in that room off the kitchen. I would often come down in the morning and find Jane smoking her French cigarettes. She seemed everything I didn’t feel I was–sophisticated, bohemian, aloof(at least to me!) and brilliant.

In January 1969 Jane was murdered in the apartment she lived in after graduating from Radcliffe in 1967. It was a dreadful crime, very unusual for Cambridge, and many theories were put forward. Jane studied anthropology, and rumors abounded that it was a ritual murder connected with her studies. Everyone assumed someone who knew her had murdered her. It went unsolved until last week.

Last week detectives tied her murder, nearly fifty years later, to a now deceased serial rapist murderer using DNA from his brother. All the rumors which often seemed to implicate Jane in her own death were put to rest. She was a victim of a senseless crime by a stranger who broke into her apartment. I grieve, of course, as I remember her again. But I am relieved that it was no one she knew, that it wasn’t connected to her work, and that the detectives were persistent for all this time. I will always remember her sitting in that kitchen, self possessed, smoking her Gauloises.

Tolerance as a virtue is easy to confuse with the word “tolerate.” As in I can’t “tolerate” the way he treats her. That word suggests that immediate action is required to do something about a situation. But tolerance implies something quite different and is rarely demonstrated in the present political and religious climate of the United States. I suppose that a colloquial way of putting it would be embracing the idea of “live and let live.”

What would it mean to show tolerance about another person’s religious or political beliefs? Why am I contrasting it with being patronizing towards those beliefs? Tolerance suggests, I think, an ability to respect another person’s ideas without agreeing with them. I think that a patronizing attitude shows that I am pretending to respect another person’s ideas but really know that they are wrong. I think people can tell when we are patronizing rather than showing tolerance.

For me this is more of a challenge politically than religiously. It took me many years of exploration to finally plant myself in a Catholic church. I actually do respect other religious views or the lack of them. I am not patronizing in interactions with others about faith. But I evidence much less tolerance about political views different from my own. I am not including racist or anti-Semitic views, just run of the mill conservative outlooks. Here I seem to be having an internal discussion in my mind as I question the person’s intelligence at holding those views! I get flustered and have trouble recognizing their right to disagree with me. I have shown much less tolerance recently, joining with too many Americans in an increasingly polarized country.

May I learn to practice tolerance in politics as I do with religion. May we all.

I first heard the word temperance in high school when studying the liquor smashing behavior of such people as Carrie Nation. At that time in the late 19th century many people opposed alcohol in all its forms, stating that it caused many social ills. The Temperance Movement, as it was called, predated but was eventually subsumed by the Constitutional Amendment enacting Prohibition. Since the Temperance Movement opposed all alcohol, as did Prohibition, I mistakenly believed that temperance and abstinence from all drink were the same.

However, the virtue of temperance has a more nuanced meaning than total avoidance. It includes moderation in all forms, whether in food, drink, language or actions. In that sense it is close kin to prudence, which I discussed a few days ago. But for me prudence suggests a pause before action while temperance seems to be a quality to maintain during action. It would mean that I know when enough is enough, whether it is dessert or a seemingly pointless argument.

Today in the U.S. is called Black Friday because the stores are full of “unbelievable” bargains. The day certainly calls out the opposite of temperance–greed. The ads suggest that we MUST have MORE. And we need to hurry and buy before it is TOO LATE. Because we are having Thanksgiving dinner tonight to accommodate my grandchildren, I missed the sales. But ever since reading the book “Radical Gratitude,” I have found myself approaching all purchases with both prudence(before acting) and temperance(knowing I have enough.) Both are counter cultural, not easy, which I suppose is why we hear so little about these two virtues today.