It was clear that I had killed it. I couldn’t pretend otherwise. That I had managed to kill it while trying to take care of it, while employing long-practiced skills in extending the life of an outdoor thing that lives inside didn’t really matter. The plant was dead. Lynne said as much when she […]
Read more
The cat calls for her dinner. (This is a post about a poem, and these are some of its lines:) On the porch I bend and pour brown soy stars into her bowl, stroke her dark fur. No. It’s not a poem about a cat, although here at the beginning one might think it […]
Read more
This is the fourth post in a series meant to be preceded by an introductory letter. Please read that here. Listen here: Click here to download the audio file. Foster Intimacy, part 2 “Shame and death are the two great enemies of the Gospel.” ~Jay Thomas “Much dysfunction is a function of denying brokenness.” […]
Read more
This is the second post of a series meant to be preceded in reading by an introductory letter. Please read that HERE. Grow Up. “Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.” ~ W. E. B. Du Bois “There’s a world of difference between insisting on someone’s doing something and establishing […]
Read more
This post is the first of a series, and is meant to be preceded in reading by an introductory letter. Please read that HERE. Enjoy Your Children “Children should be seen and not heard.” ~ English proverb “The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight […]
Read more
Dear Friends, Last year I was invited to speak to a Mothers Of Pre-Schoolers group on “teaching the gospel to very young children.” I immediately agreed, interested in returning to a subject I haven’t considered in a while. But I was surprised by some further dialogue between me and the woman who invited me to […]
Read more
Recently I was asked to write about the empty nest. I’m not sure I can, so I wrote about Advent instead.
Read more
This year, Sunday, December 1 is the beginning of Advent, the four weeks of the church calendar leading to Christmas Day. Once again I’m posting the four readings I wrote last year. Each one considers a different person in the nativity story, and each offers thoughts as […]
Read more
These moments are immortal, and most transitory of all;… Beams of their power stream into the ordered world and dissolve it again and again. Martin Buber, I and Thou On the morning of Everett and Olivia’s wedding, I had to pull Everett’s box out from under my bed. I have a box for each of […]
Read more
Our backyard maples are skeletal now. It happened in that sudden way that means I haven’t been paying attention. I know they flushed to gold about two weeks ago. Emma called me to the window, and we stared at them together for a minute. They can seem incandescent in those early yellow days, like […]
Read more