Note: This post was first published on December 17, 2005, back when our church still had an orchestra. Because of conversations and thoughts I’ve had of late, I thought it was time to post it again. I have revised it a little, but only a little. Note 2: Not long after I posted this, my parents […]
Read moreWe are in New England for the week, staying on a farm in a quiet corner of Rhode Island. It’s beautiful here–because it’s New England, because it’s green and wooded, because it’s about ten degrees cooler than any July at home. Of course we want New England to look as it *should,* and Rhode […]
Read moreSee him: Small boy in plaid shorts. Helmet. Sneakers. Socks pulled high on the shin. He is no more than four, maybe a little bit three. He is trying to push his bicycle off the paved trail and into the pine straw, but only the front tire has made it. Rear tire and training wheels […]
Read moreOriginally published May, 2015 All I could see at first was the skirt’s long hem and the sensible shoes, which had arrived to pause at the edge of the trail that runs behind our house. Then I saw almost the entire boy, as he was small enough to appear (sneakers and socks, shorts and blue […]
Read more“Green,” a word that covers but can’t epitomize what I’m seeing.
Read moreThe next morning, the mess wasn’t a mess. The dining room table held its requisite scattering of crumbs and, on a gold paper plate, part of a chocolate chip cookie. The strings of a helium balloon bouquet were collapsed into a house plant, the balloons themselves having been sacrificed–at the end of the party– in […]
Read moreAll I could see at first was the skirt’s long hem and the sensible shoes, which had arrived to pause at the edge of the trail that runs behind our house. Then I saw almost the entire boy, as he was small enough to appear (sneakers and socks, shorts and blue t-shirt) under the leaves […]
Read moreThis blog post is a gift to my mother, whose birthday was April 21st. And in loving memory of my grandmother, Grace Everett, whose birthday was the 27th. The field guides were kept in the dining room. Not obtrusively on the kitchen table or counter, but just around the corner, accessible to a quick eye […]
Read more“I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.” -Jeremiah 9:24 The Bible tells me that God is kind. This, of course, among a multitude of other qualities that He doesn’t so much possess as He defines by virtue of His existence. (And that is enough to […]
Read moreI had a happy childhood. That small fact is likely adequate to spoil my hopes of ever being a *good* writer, but there it is. The actual truth is that I had a very happy childhood. That said, I did not own a pair of Nike’s until well into the sixth grade, maybe later, and […]
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