As I have gone about my day, the story weaving in and out of all of it has been the Pope’s retirement. To listen to the reporters, this is a day like none other in history. For the first time in six hundred years, someone has ceased to be the Bishop of Rome without...
Read more →The important thing is that you have a lot of skin cells. Of those billions of skin cells, between 30,000 and 40,000 of them fall off every hour. Over a 24-hour period, you lose almost a million skin cells. Where do they all go? The dust that collects on your tables, TV, windowsills and...
Read more →After a second day of rain here in Durham, something struck me I had never thought of before: the Gospel writers don’t say much about the weather. I even spent some time doing a little research. Other than the “windstorm” that swept across the Sea of Galilee (Luke 8) and a storm on Paul’s...
Read more →My friend, Nathan Brown, is a poet and musician who was named the Poet Laureate of Oklahoma last fall. During December, as we dealt with the impending doom of the Mayan calendar, I dubbed him the Poet Laureate of the Apocalypse. He continues to be a good friend and a wonderful encourager to me...
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 →I wasn’t planning on being a cultural critic when I sat down to write, but the week has been long and I am tired. I didn’t come to the desk with a ripe idea; my mind felt as blank as the page in front of me. So I went looking for other words or,...
Read more →Ginger and I went to the movie the other afternoon and as we were coming out of the film I mentioned it reminded me of a friend from Fort Worth who was a minister at another church whom I used to call in the middle of the afternoon and get him to go to...
Read more →My church is on a roll. Not too many weeks ago, we spent three Sunday nights together for “Forgetting But Not Forgotten: Alzheimer’s and Faith,” which attracted over eighty people each week. On Tuesday of this week, we began a four week Lenten series, “Poverty in Durham: A Faith Perspective.” Twenty-seven percent of our...
Read more →There are some nights I sit down to write what has been brewing all day, then there are others where I begin with a blank canvas and try to get quiet enough to see what ripens. Tonight’s poem comes at the end of a busy day when I don’t feel as though I had...
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...
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