We found this sign hanging off the front porch as we drove up to the house yesterday. I wish you could see the individual notes written all over the banner. I do feel welcomed. Thank you. Peace,Milton

As we got ready to leave Birmingham last Sunday, I quickly made a couple of CDs for the road while we were packing the cars, almost randomly picking tracks — mostly I picked artists I wanted to hear. Looking back on yesterday, it appears I picked a pretty good soundtrack. put the message in a…

John Wendland, my best friend in first and second grade, had horses. He was the youngest child in a big family and his two oldest sisters, both in high school, said they would take us riding. Mary, the oldest, pulled me up on the saddle behind her, told me to wrap my arms around her…

Ginger and I are officially in The Week of Transition between Marshfield and Durham, so we snuck away for a couple of days together in a town where neither of us had ever been: Chattanooga, Tennessee. Yesterday, we spent a good bit of time at the amazing Tennessee Aquarium and found a pretty good burger…

highway eighty-four ran due east across theCentral Texas night, I remember the moonrising over the top of the telephone poles the road was lonely enough for me to turnmy headlights off in deference and drivein the dark to the light as if I would reach it every Sunday night after, I drove and waitedfor the…

I woke up before everyone else in the house this morning, thanks to Gracie, our youngest Schnauzer. I started the coffee pot and then started looking for something to read, having already devoured the latest issue of The Nation yesterday morning. I remembered packing some books among the pots and pans that have traveled with…

When my family gets together, the conversation eventually turns to church. On my Cunningham side, it’s the family business going back three generations and we love to talk. On my Brasher side, I married a minister who dives into her faith and her profession with both head and heart; we all have a lot to…

As Ginger and I looked through the Yellow Pages last Saturday trying to find a phone number for Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, I began to notice the names of the churches as sort of a “found” poem. Here, then, is what we found: Christian Names First, FriendshipGalilee, Grace, GethsemaneMounts Calvary, Carmel, Sinai, ZionNew Canaan, New…

Though it is only Tuesday, today is the day I start working on the turkey. I’m writing from the café at Whole Foods Market in Birmingham where I called last week to reserve my bird: free range, fresh, never frozen. “I want one of those birds who spends all day running and playing and sitting…

Here are a few of the new recipes I’m trying out this year. Some have already been checked out in the Don’t Eat Alone Test Kitchen, others we’ll all taste for the first time on Thursday. I think they’ll all measure up just fine. Here are a couple more vegetable ideas: roasted red curry carrots…