it began as a ployto get them to finishtheir vocabularywho could blame meon a high schoolfriday afternoon “if you finishyour assignmentwe’ll go to caribou” –they made quickwork of exercisesalready past due and we walked across the parking lot to our latteswith the novelswe carried as coverto fool the front desk we sat in a squaresipping…

This afternoon, I went with our math teacher and the twelve kids that make up our little high school to a machine shop which is owned by the parents of one of the students. The teacher wanted the kids to go so they could see that math gets used in the real world. I went…

public instruction as I drove yesterday to theDepartment of Public InstructionI imagined a building filled with finger-pointing people telling other people what to do and how to do itI was going to be toldwhat I needed to do to getmy state teacher’s licensethe security guard instructedme to take the first leftthe man in the licensure…

Yesterday morning marked the first time in several days that I had to answer my five o’clock alarm telling me it was time to get ready for school. Gracie, our middle Schnauzer, was grateful for the return to routine because it meant she got to eat earlier and it was a return to routine, which…

I left my notes for my post sitting on my desk at school this afternoon as I was heading for the second shift at the computer store. I came home tonight to discover these words from Nate Klug, a new poet to me and a fellow UCCer. AdventIn the middle of Decemberto start overto assume…

As I sat down tonight to begin writing this Advent Journal, I decided to go back and read what I had written as my first Advent entry over the previous five years. In my 2006 post, I found this poem by Barbara Crooker: In the Middle of a life that’s as complicated as everyone else’s,struggling…

Ben and Scott Cunningham are wonderful songwriters and musicians, and awesome people as well. They are also my nephews. As a band, they call themselves The Olive Tree and they have just released a new collection (am I still allowed to call it an album?) that they offer as a free download at bandcamp.com. Here…

in all our living and in all our dyingwe belong to God, we belong to God             “Pues Si Vivimos,” Mexican folk hymnif the night didn’t lie in the darknessthen the daylight will be hard to find                Lyle Lovett there are few things . . . . . . as large as emptiness. . ….

there is no place where I walkwhere someone has not walkedno conversation I might havethat’s not already talked what is new in my big worldis mostly new to me that those who have come beforehave kindly let me see as if it were the first timeand then underneath the newa sacred sense a heart shinea…

there’s a difference between a loss and an absencein the same way a deep cut is notan amputation we are not mourning one who is lost but one who has died he is not missinghe is gone Peace,Milton