Time is a living thing. We talk about it as something that ticks by or slips away, something we make or take or keep or lose, but it is a force, a dimension, an entity on its own terms. Though we often talk about telling time, we do better to listen to what it is…

James sings Joni. Peace,Milton

I first found Chet Raymo in the Science section of the Boston Globe where he wrote a weekly column. I was neither an ornithologist nor an astronomer, but he talked of birds and stars in a way that fed both my curiosity and my faith: he made me think I could understand what he was…

Some time during the evening on Saturday I first noticed the little wisp that floated into my vision. It looks like a pen and ink drawing of a cloud, or a thin line of black smoke, except it has a certain bounce to it, based on my blinking, that makes it do a little dance…

I’m not sure the first time that it happened; over twenty years, I’ve lost count of how many times we have repeated the scene. Ginger always begins the conversation, and the statement generally comes out of nowhere: “OK,” she’ll say, “name three reasons you love me.” And I name three specific things – three the-way-you-wear-your-hat…

the more I hear the story the more I think of youthe young girl who tookthe weight of graceand carried it to termalong with the secretsand accompanying slander my four weeks of waitingare a failing facsimile ofpregnancy and preparationand I know who the boybecame while you wereleft to grow up as well some make you…

Each day is a little life, and each life is rounded with a little dark. (Chet Raymo, 41) little lives I was born this morninginto a world of possibilitieswrapped, first, in the wonderof a BLT and egg sandwich(yes, God is good)and the kind of conversationamong friends that defineswhat friends are to oneanother: the ones who…

I had a couple of errands to run before I went to work this morning, both related to my in-laws coming to visit this coming week. The first was to take our recliner to get the springs on the bottom reattached; for whatever reason, they had chosen to let go over the past couple of…

Four days on, my Advent mornings are beginning to find a pattern, a sort of sameness I hope will focus my mind and heart for the day to give me something to say when I come home. After all, as John Prine so beautifully put it, how the hell can a person go to work…

When I got home from work Sunday night, Ginger and I took our two Schnauzers, Lola and Ella, for a walk around the neighborhood. We have to go late because Lola is not much of a people person and does better on dark and quiet streets. More nights than not, I sing a little Patsy…