the funeral of reasonable expectations you would think a funeral would be more quiet the din makes it difficult to discern my emotions in these days of venom and vitriol or know what dreams have a chance of survival how then do we hope when so many seem so committed to fighting to the death…
banana pudding cookies I was invited by my friend Taylor Davis to be a part of an All Saints celebration at his church. During the past year, they have experienced a season of profound grief that included the deaths of two of their pastors. Taylor asked me to come and prepare a meal to go…
items may have shifted during flight getting from one place to another quickly takes a lot of time what began as a seven hour journey has turned into ten and I am floating in the endless transition of an airport lounge packed with others who are not yet where they are supposed to be in…
We were in the kitchen this morning kind of goofing around and Ginger said, “Hey, Siri, play sad songs.” A couple of seconds passed and the voice from our HomePod said, “Okay, now playing sad songs.” Two or three tunes played and Ginger smiled and said, “This sounds like what you listen to all the…
November begins with two anniversaries in our household: on the first day of the month, seven years ago, we said goodbye to Durham, North Carolina, and then on the second we said hello to Guilford, Connecticut, arriving in town on the fiftieth anniversary of the day Ginger and her parents moved into the house where…
death is not far away I have lived long enough to learn that those who have died don’t go anywhere at least not to some land far beyond the skies like I was taught to sing about what I mean is wherever they go is not above or below but among beside a dimension we…
time travelers we shared a table under the art tent then a table next to the pizza truck at the sunday school saturday kickoff I remembered her even though I had not seen her in three summers I didn’t recognize her I said to her father she’s four now he said and I realized two…
The days have been full and my mind and heat have been quiet, so Went back through words I have written before and found this poem in a Long Ago File that spoke to me tonight. I hope it finds you as well. volcano do you remember the grade when we built volcanoes hollow towers…
I learned a new word today: concatenation. –the act of linking together in a chain; concatenating; –the state of being concatenated; connection, as in a chain; –a series of interconnected or interdependent things or events. I read the word in Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald, who was writing about her migraines what they had taught…
I preached this morning at our church in Guilford, and it was another peach of a passage as far as the lectionary is concerned. I had to write the sermon in traffic, as I like to say, because it was a hectic week, but some of those things became part of what helped me to…