As I was wrapping scallops in little bacon blankets this afternoon, I heard a great story on All Things Considered about plans for a new telescope to replace the Hubble Telescope, which has given us some amazing images of things we had never been able to see before. The new one, to be called the…
Today is Ginger’s birthday. We drove into Boston around two because, thanks to a friend in the church, we had tickets to the Edward Hopper exhibition that just opened at the Museum of Fine Arts. Ginger and I have different viewing practices when we go to a museum. She moves through the room intuitively and…
I was almost to the Inn today when my phone rang. Chef was calling to tell me he had been fired by The Owner, who appears to be clearing out employees like brush along a fence line. Last Friday he let three of our wonderful Brazilian folks go including the guy who helped me with…
Last October, I wrote about what I called a “quintessential New England fall day,” which ended up with a hymn sing at church. If you will indulge me, I want to quote part of that post on my way to some new thoughts. Tonight about twenty of us gathered at the church to sing. Growing…
The first time Ginger and I came to Boston together was in May of 1989. We had been dating a little over four months. I attended a youth ministry seminar at Princeton Seminary and tacked on a week of vacation so I could hang out in Beantown. My mother was so excited that I was…
Though National Poetry Month is over, I’m still getting a poem-a-day from Poets.org, for which I continue to be grateful. The first stanza of today’s poem took me on an unexpected journey, or, I should say, raised an unexpected question. Here’s what I read: Surf Buddhaby Matthew Lippman There is a sandalwood Buddha on the…
I don’t like eating alone, but cooking alone is another story – particularly on a day like today. The owner came back from across the sea last night and a storm is already brewing at the Inn. He spent most of the day wandering around with a scowl on his face. Chef and the other…
William Delahunt, my representative in Congress, is one of the good guys leading the fight against extraordinary rendition. Read this article from his web site.Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are both working to bring the issue to light. Another article can be found here. You can even buy a transcript of the hearing I…
I’ve got something I’ve been carrying around for a few days I have to get on the page. Last Wednesday, the NPR program Here & Now aired a segment on a congressional hearing on our government’s practice of “extraordinary rendition,” which sounds like more like a critique for a performance on American Idol than it…
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…