Does walking in the woods constitute a spiritual practice? I vote “yes,” for if the time I spent in Edwin Warner Park over the weekend did anything for me—besides get me off the couch—it took me to a place beyond the physical.

I have often vowed, as a new year approached, to lose weight, use my time more wisely, be vigilant about recycling. This year, I’m resolving to concentrate on my spiritual health.

Just as I try to pay attention to my physical health with renewed vigor as one year ends and another begins--join a gym, take up karate, cut out sugar--surely I should notice what’s going on with my spirit. I believe that one feeds the other. If my spirit is sound, my physical, emotional, and mental well-being will follow. (A girl can hope!)

Yesterday while driving I had a momentary freak-out about something going on in my personal life. For several clicks of the blinker, I was consumed with worry about an issue over which I have no control.

I have put my 87-year-old mother down for a nap, and I find myself alone in a quiet space for the first time this week. I had vowed to make room for daily spiritual reflection during the Advent season, and I am here to admit to you that I failed miserably. Sigh. Surely I will do better in the New Year. I will put it at the top of my resolutions, just above losing weight and writing that novel.

On the ten-o'clock news tonight a woman tells us that a man with a gun approached her car in a threatening manner after she pulled into a parking space at an area shopping mall--a space the man apparently thought he deserved. The woman wasn’t harmed, and the alleged perpetrator was caught. So for that we can be grateful.

"The only way I could begin to forgive my ex-husband, and move on with my life,” said a friend, "was to pray for him."

According to the Religion Newswriters Association, here are the top ten religion stories for 2008:

 “To display or not to display” seems to be the dilemma in Olympia, Washington. You may already be aware of the situation, in which an atheist group put up a sign near the Nativity scene in the capitol. It reads, in part, “There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.” Goodness knows I’m all for freedom of speech, and freedom of religion, but that hurts.

Sunday was “Lessons and Carols” at my church, in which scripture readings of the Christmas story are interspersed with music. No homily, no announcements, no communion. Just scripture and music. And it is enough.

It’s the time of Advent in the Christian church, four weeks of expectation and preparation as we head toward Christmas. The word derives from the Latin adventus, “arrival” (Oxford English Dictionary), and heralds the celebration of the birth of Jesus as well as anticipates the future second coming. In other words, it’s all about the waiting. Have I mentioned that patience is not my strong suit?

“Sometimes I feel guilty for how lucky I am,” I told a friend. “I’m not sure many people would consider you all that lucky,” she said in response. She immediately apologized for her remark, but I did not take offense. What it made me think about is this: my happiness probably won’t look like yours, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

"I’ll be in Nashville for Thanksgiving, but in December I’m going to visit my brother in Raleigh,” said one of my girlfriends. “Get this: Last night he told me that on Christmas Day he’ll be leaving to have lunch with some friends in a nearby town.”

“What?” I sputtered (subtlety has never been my strong suit). “You mean he didn’t invite you to go with him?”

The bumper sticker, affixed to the crumpled front end of a blue four-door, read “Temporarily out of order.” As the faded import limped around the corner, I smiled. Not only because I found it funny, and honest, but also because I wished I could slap such a warning on my forehead when I need to alert folks that I’m not at the top of my game.

“It’s the nicest thing that’s happened to me in quite a while,” said my mother on the phone, calling from Mississippi. At 86, she still gets around on her own, but she is slowing down a bit and, I suspect, growing weary of the impermanent stuff of life. She and I have become accustomed to talking several times a week since my father died in 2000.

“You remember that sweet girl from your Sunday school class?”

About two hours and ten seconds after I thought to myself, “This is great. I haven’t been sick in six months,” I was felled by some sort of head cold that has kept me couch-bound for several days. In-between waiting for my husband to get back from the drugstore with the latest round of syrups and salves and dozing off with frightening regularity, I’ve been thinking about what it means to pray for myself.

Ugh. I have survived my first two Pilates classes and need to tell someone how proud I am of myself. It’s not much, I know, but it’s a start. A beginning of a new discipline that I hope will strengthen my body and improve my overall health.

“Please tell me you’re not going to talk about politics,” I said to John J. Thatamanil, Ph.D., who was serving as a guest preacher at the church we both attend. I was smiling when I said it, but I have, in all honesty, grown weary of political talk that seems to pervade most every facet of my life. It seems I can’t even open an email from a fellow writer or run into an acquaintance in Hillsboro Village without learning which way he or she plans to swing on election day and why I should follow suit.

While handing out goodie bags to trick-or-treaters and reminiscing about the Raggedy Andy costume my mother made for me oh-so-many years ago (my friend Sheila Beth demanded to be Raggedy Ann), I stopped for a moment to consider the day after Halloween.

As a writer, I sometimes wish I’d included another phrase in an article or chosen a different word in an essay. Usually there’s nothing I can do about it but vow to try harder the next time to make sure the piece is “just so.” But the beauty of blogging is that I can hop online and offer a “p.s.,” if you will.

Lately I’ve been hearing from an old friend with increased frequency. We have known one another since the mid-1970s, and we have been through a lot together: her divorce, my midlife marriage, the deaths of her mother and my father. We have moved across state lines, gotten through graduate school, and bemoaned our aging bodies. We talk more often when one of us is in crisis mode, and this time it’s her turn. She has recently ended a seven-year relationship with a man she loved.