I had visions of a post and even the beginnings of a poem for tonight, but the days were not accomplished to see either born this night. I will, therefore lean into an unintentional tradition on this blog of posting my Christmas story, which I appear to have done for the last few years. A…
Today was my first day riding the train since I finished The Illusion of Separateness. As I was packing my book bag, I looked around for new literary accompaniment and saw my copy of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, which I started rereading before we left Durham (I read it two or three…
I wonder what the shepherds did the year after the angels came, or how the Magi went about their business when they got back home. I wonder if the innkeeper woke in the middle of the night and sat in the barn for no reason. How did they keep the story fresh— Did they go…
When I consider that the early Christians could have chosen any night to mark the one in which Jesus came into the world, I wonder why they didn’t pick this night—the longest night—to show, as John said, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot extinguish it. Then again, marking the birth four…
Two Sundays ago, one of the men in our church stopped me after worship and asked if I wanted to be on the Christmas Tree Committee. Before I committed, I asked what it involved and he said, “Meet here next Saturday morning to go cut down the tree and put it up in the front…
He did what they told him to do. He would have done anything they told him to do. He hid inside the pronoun we. (The Illusion of Separateness 189) Life is a team sport. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve uttered that sentence I’d have enough to take us all to dinner….
redolence we drove south of the city, and straight into a sunset that had no sense of time we were going nowhere together, following our noses, as the saying goes, breathing in the evening reading in a bakery,I discovered “the fragrance of our lives in the world” . . . from someone else’s words rose…
“The shadows are deepening all around us. Now is the time when we must begin to see our world and ourselves in a different way.” (Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet 246) in other decembers It has done nothing today but rain. In other Decembers, there would be snow to go along with the carols….
In the last few minutes before we had to leave the house in order for me to catch the 8:32 train to New Haven, I realized I needed a new book to accompany me on the journey over the next few days. I perused the bookshelf and pulled out a novel suggested to me by…
The train ride into New Haven was significant this morning because I finished my rereading of Walking on Water. It will go back on the shelf for another couple of years. In the closing pages, L’Engle talked about the importance of editing and revising for an artist. Honing one’s craft does not necessarily make it…