One Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago, I posted a video on my Facebook page of a group called The Lone Bellow singing their cover of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery,” which is my favorite song. I captioned the post, “Here is our invocation for the morning.” A friend wrote back questioning the...
Read more →One of the small memories of my senior year at Baylor is sitting talking to a friend in the Student Union Building as people walked by. Those who recognized us would inevitably ask, “How are you?” as they passed. My friend looked at me and said, “No one really wants to wait for the...
Read more →About two weeks after I started substitute teaching at Charlestown High School — over twenty years ago — the assistant headmaster called me into her office one day after school and said, “You like English, right?” By the time the conversation ended, I was filling in for one of the English teachers who hurt...
Read more →I can remember buying the record. Vinyl. 1979 — my first year in seminary and her first record, self-titled: Rickie Lee Jones. The radio hit was “Chuck E.’s in Love,” but the record was full of great things beyond what was fed to the general public. I loved the abandon with which she sang...
Read more →Tonight was the third in our series of gatherings at church to look at what we can do about poverty in Durham. This week’s session was called “Beyond Charity: Addressing Causes and Empowering People.” We heard from three different groups: Circles of Support, which looks to create support teams of four to ten people...
Read more →After writing about allergies, I went to bed with metaphors on my mind and woke up thinking about music as both metaphor and soundtrack for life, or at least those thoughts were running in the background. Before I left for church, I listened again to Scott Simon’s interview with Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell...
Read more →One of my morning rituals is to read the Writer’s Almanac. When we lived in Massachusetts, in played on WBUR as I was going to work; here in Durham I read the text on the website. Besides a daily dose of poetry, Garrison Keillor also mentions two or three significant birthdays or anniversaries. Today...
Read more →The best part of an idea is the conversation it creates. The last several days have created a conversation in my head and my Moleskine among folks who have yet to know they are talking to each other. I woke up this morning to a message from my friend, fellow Pilgrim, and self-described physics...
Read more →I’ve continued my journey into The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us over the last couple of days and read something this morning that made me think of our lenten journey. Let me explain. In a chapter called “Ignoring the Content, Celebrating the Style,” James Pennybaker makes two points in...
Read more →My gift for Valentine’s Day — along with a box of SpongeBob SquarePants chocolates — was a trip to the Regulator to pick out a book. On the table of recent and notable books I found The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us by James W. Pennebaker. He is the...
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