When we were in Istanbul a year ago, Ginger and I were both taken by the calls to prayer that went out from the mosques five times a day. Istanbul has more mosques than Dallas has Baptist churches, so the various calls wound together in a haunting sacred harmony that moved us both, even though…

You have to see this: Peace,Milton

I’ve got a poem I’ve been working with for awhile about punctuation. I decided now is a good time to talk about it because of the poem of the day from Poets.org, which deals with the same subject. Appeal to the Grammariansby Paul Violifrom (Hanging Loose Press) We, the naturally hopeful,Need a simple signFor the…

Peace,Milton

Affirmation is life-giving. When I was teaching high school, I started putting stickers on vocabulary quizzes (and then on other papers and tests) for good grades. The kids went nuts over them. I was teaching junior Honors Brit Lit and they were clamoring for Sponge Bob stickers. I know how they feel. I started back…

In the weight of these times, I found myself looking for a little relief tonight. And, since we are in the waning days of National Poetry Month, I offer yet another poem. Naming the Animals “Our job is to name the animals,” she said.“All of them?” he asked.“Why? Where do you have to be?”She smiled….

Yes, I know I’m posting a couple of times today. I wanted to talk about the blog tour, but the thing most on my mind is the Global Days for Darfur initiative taking place this week around the world thanks to the Save Darfur Coalition. The volume of voices calling for significant action to save…

There’s a new site worth visiting (actually a new version of something already going pretty well called The High Calling of Our Daily Work, which looks at what it means to be called to our vocation whether or not that means we are professionally spiritual. They have some great stuff. I particularly like the categories…

We are more together than we know,how else could we keep on discoveringwe are more together than we thought? — Wendell Berry, “The Country of Marriage” Ginger and I celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary yesterday. We both had full workdays: I had three functions and she had a funeral, a wedding, and a fiftieth wedding…

I’m thankful I woke up this morning late enough to miss NBC’s airing of the video of Cho Seung-Hui that he mailed before he started shooting people in Blacksburg. I don’t want to see it. I know I don’t need to. What I did read were the anonymous comments from one angry person to Tracy’s…