I trained my replacement tonight. The guy who will take over at the Duke restaurant next semester worked alongside Abel and me to get a sense of how things work and, I’m sure, how he might do things differently once I have shuffled off to high school. He’s a really nice guy, a strong cook,…

As I drove to the Duke restaurant this afternoon, Talk of the Nation was my soundtrack, as is often the case. I happened to join the program just as Tavis Smiley began talking about his program MLK: A Call Beyond Conscience, which looks at Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break…

One of my friends from the Durham restaurant, Leonora, told me about a poetry class she has been taking at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies. The class itself doesn’t have much to do with making documentaries, which I suppose means more than anything that the folks at the CDS are mostly looking for new…

We started on the courtyardall waving our palm frondsand naming them since we neversay frond except on Palm Sunday. Before the hour was overwe moved from parade toPassion, from courtyard to Cross, in a couple of verses. Tonight I watched basketballand saw how quickly thingschange, how triumph crossesthat thin line into loss. For years, I’ve…

I was a sixth grader at Hubbard Heights Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas in 1967. My family was on furlough from the mission field and we were members at University Baptist Church. America was a foreign country to my brother and me. I learned that year that there were people who lived in one…

Ambition leads to the demand for the shortest path between points to gain the most in the least amount of time; wonder calls the heart to explore the unexpected, nonlinear paths that often create a new unity that could not be expected when one first began.(from Sabbath: The Ancient Practices by Dan Allender, by way…

Sunday morning I came into church a little late and slid into the pew beside the spouse of Carla, our Minister of Christian Education as she was gathering the children at the front for their time together. One of the things I love best about our church is the way our children are taught and…

I started teaching at my new school just a couple of weeks before the end of the grading term, which means I needed books we could read fairly quickly. I’m also teaching eighth graders for the first time, and adjusting to younger students. When I found The Jungle Book in the supply room, I found…

I began this morning with this thought from Donald Miller: Leaders aren’t cynical. I found this song running through my head this afternoon, from Jackson Browne: Doctor, my eyes cannot see the skies –is this the price for having learned how not to cry And it’s been a long day. I’m going to sing myself…

Here in America we yell at each other as thoughanger were a pre-existing condition,and diatribe an anagram of democracy;but screaming doesn’t make it so:louder and truer are not synonyms —the same goes for rich and smart. Using poetry to talk politicsis like giving a homework assignmentto a gaggle of eighth graders:you can talk, but most…