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Barbara Falconer Newhall

Veteran journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall riffs on life as she knows it.

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prayer

Prayer Flags Were Flying — But What Is Prayer?

August 9, 2025 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

prayer flags were flying what is prayer odiyan-Cintamani-Temple

Prayer flags were flying at the Ratna Ling Retreat center, and I wondered, but not for the first time, what is prayer?  Read more.

An Episcopalian Says Kaddish for Her Jewish Aunt

June 27, 2013 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Brookside Cemetery in Amber Township, west of Scottville, MI. Headstones in foreground, farmland and busy Highway 10 in background. Photo by BF Newhall

 

My Aunt Grace, who died in January, was Jewish. Most everyone else in her family had remained Christian or had moved on to atheism, secularism or indifference. The question was, how does a bunch of Christians and agnostics say a parting prayer for a Jew? Read more.

Book Openers: I Still Haven’t Figured Out How to Pray — But I’m in Good Company

July 20, 2009 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

“I am a failure at prayer,” author Barbara Brown Taylor confesses . . . Now there’s a woman after my own heart.

Simone Weil on Prayer — First, Pay Attention. Book Openers

April 6, 2009 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

retablo-chimayo-joseph

Simone Weil’s life was a short one, but her startling insights into the nature of God and God’s relationship to humanity pertain today.  Read more.

Sister Barbara Hazzard on How to Pray Without Words

February 24, 2009 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

What is prayer anyway? I haven’t a clue. These days, when I go to pray, I often find I haven’t a thing to say to God. Every tradition I’ve come in contact with in all my years as a religion reporter and writer recommends — no, insists upon — prayer. Yet right now I don’t know how to do it. I don’t even know why to do it.

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ON THE FUNNY SIDE

It’s Spring and My Garden Looks Dreadful. Here’s Why

heuchera-and-iceland-poppy-clashing

My garden looks dreadful. Here’s why. My plants won’t cooperate. The iris wants to be an iris. The azalea, an azalea. The poppy, a poppy.  Read more.

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TO MY READERS

Please feel free to share links to my posts with one and all and to quote briefly from them in your own writing, remembering, of course, to attribute the quote to me and to provide a link back to this site.

My Oakland Tribune columns, btw, are reprinted by permission of the Trib. With the exception of review copies of books, I do not accept ads or freebies of any kind. Click on the "Contact" button if you have questions. Enjoy!

 

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Perdita by Frederick Sandys is on the cover of Patricia Monaghan's Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines, 2014.

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