I like to know what’s next as muchas possible, so when they call and say,“We need you to work a dinner Saturday,”I wish they would tell me the occasionand the menu, just so I have an idea ofhow to prepare myself to prepare the meal.I think differently for salmon than sirloin. Catering, for the most…

One could wish for a day that was carbonated,words rising effervescently, even effortlesslyto the top, bubbles of hope bursting on thesurface. Today is not that day; nor yesterday.I’m waiting for the plumber to come find theblock on our main drain, somewhere betweenhere and the street, underneath the growinggrass and the nascent hasta, undergroundwhere the words…

if it’s going to be freshthen it must be doneeveryday: today andtomorrow and the dayafter that. most of whatwe think of as life andcooking is preparation,or at least that’s whatwe call it. in fact, thechopping and peeling,the slicing, marinating –all of those things wethink of as “the gettingready” are really theshow: one long act oflove…

I turn down our tree-lined streets,the empty branches reaching skywardyearning skeletons just now beginningto show signs of new life, the groans ofcreation tuning up like an orchestrapreparing to play a new symphony. Yet, the trees have not been silent all winter.Their shadow song is harder, but a melodynonetheless. The strains of pain and silenceare not…

Brilliance with numbers is a curious thing. Paul Erdos, a Hungarian who died in 1996, used to travel the world and stop briefly at the offices and homes of fellow mathematicians. “My brain is open,” he would announce as, with uncanny intuition, he suggested a problem that, without realizing it, his host was already halfway…

A poem is like a ball park(or is the park like a poem?):some precise measurements –the height of the mound,the length of the base paths,the size of the ball –yet each park is its own,each outfield shaped byGreen Monsters and shortporches; the rules apply andno two are exactly the same. The batter who can hit…

I spent the weekend leading a youth retreat for a church in Virginia where a good friend pastors. The group of fifteen included kids from seventh through twelfth grade. They are kind, gentle, fun, and welcoming people. The weekend was scheduled to take the word retreat seriously: we have a few sessions and a great…

“A good storyteller speaks a melody; in conversation there is melody.” Mac McAnally, in conversation at Blue Rock) You’ve talked to me for yearsand I’ve listened. Does thatcount as conversation? I canstill see myself walking outof Baylor Records with a copyof Nothin’ But The Truth tuckedunder my arm; I spent the betterpart of the next…

I’ve been staring at the screen for awhile now, trying to think of a way to bring this year’s Lenten Journal to an end and I have not found them — at least, I haven’t found words of my own. What I have found are words I first heard on Bob Bennett’s record, First Things…

Holy Week has had to jockey for space on the calendar this week like an NCAA basketball player working to get in position under the basket. Monday was Saint Patrick’s Day. Tuesday, Barack Obama made his amazing speech on race in America in which, as John Stewart said, “talked to us as if we were…