“It’s what’s inside the words,” she said;“Inside heart there’s an ear and there’s art.” After reading, I couldn’t help but lookfor words among the bread and vegetablesthat made up our simple supper last night,both of us finally home after daysthat felt longer than the time passed.I couldn’t find God in the green beans,or love in…

The words are Woody Guthrie’s; the voice is Ellis Paul’s. I pass them both along to you with gratitude. I didn’t promise you skies painted bluenot all colored flowers all your days throughI didn’t promise you sun with no rainjoys without sorrows, peace without pain All that I promise is strength for this day,rest for…

These are days that call for me to reflect, to hold my words and thoughts close, to share with those I can see in person, to let things ruminate and mature before they become public. There is no major crisis, no depression (thank God), nothing more than days that call me to listen more than…

there are days where lifeseems to stretch out like agreat plain, endless expansemelting into the horizon this is not one of those days today is a fresh amputeecut down to a stump of sadnessthe expected assassinatedwhile we slept and awakened to the now and the not here let us cling to each otherlike refugees like…

One of my favorites: “They say that these are not the best of times, but they’re the only times I’ve ever known . . .” Peace,Milton

Ginger and I have spent today unpacking. Yes, I know we’ve been in Durham for a year and a half, and in our house for over a year. But we’ve had a stack of boxes sitting in the shed in the back yard all that time waiting for us to make room: boxes of books…

If you were speaking in parablesthis afternoon, would you still talkabout seeds and birds and trees? You see, what we know of farmingare supermarket shelves of Costa Ricanbananas and Peruvian asparagus; a flower box of basil in the yard,summer trips to the farmer’s market.(Why is it so expensive?) In our world of uniform tomatoes,our apples…

I was checking up on a few things before heading for bed when I saw that Kenny Rankin, a singer-songwriter and awesome guitarist whom I have followed over the years, died earlier in the week from lung cancer. Here then, in the closing minutes of the day, I offer my gratitude for the music he…

When he first heard the words,he was the first to hear them:“You must be born again.”He was old and the metaphormuddled his mind: go backinto my mother’s womb–at this age? Jesus, however, was not aboutto forsake his role as midwife.There in the darkness, he calledthe old man to think of somethingother than dying, to let…

There are days I go out looking for words and, then, there are days that words come out looking for me, or at least stand hitchhiking by the road I’m on such that I can’t help but stop and pick them up. Today was a hitchhiking day. On my usual wandering through The Writer’s Almanac,…