300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 No, that’s not my salary offer to pitch next year, nor is it the number of Cheetos I have consumed in my life time. 300 sextillion is the latest estimate of the number of stars in the universe, which is three times what astronomers had previously thought. As we learned from Hubble’s “Deep Field”…
I can show you a cup of flour, or a pound of sugar, but I am at a loss to quantifyhow much grief weighs, how long a heart stays broken, how far it is to forgiveness, or the speed of the sound of loneliness —even as I strain to comprehendhow a heart like yours can…
On this Sunday of Joy during Advent, our children led us in a Posada, which is a tradition from Mexico and other Latin American countries. We had three “inns” set up around the church and the children traveled, following Mary and Joseph, to each door. They knocked and said, in unison, “We must find a…
I spent the afternoon at a Mushroom Workshop with my friends from Bountiful Backyards and I came home with a couple of shiitake logs and a few words. log work we took oak logsand drilled small holesfilled them up withmushroom spores andsealed them shut withbeeswax so we could take them homeand wait to eatflavorful fungiin…
This evening we gathered around our dinner table with friends, as is our Friday night custom, and one of them, John, said, “I have a poem to read.” What followed were words full of flavor and sustenance by a poet named Thomas Centolella, who was a new name to me. I would be remiss if…
We’re beginning to make the turn towards home in To Kill a Mockingbird in my American Lit. class. We had a discussion today about the way in which a crisis exposes both the things that tie us together and the things that tear us apart. Maycomb, the little town where the story takes place, had…
John Lennon was killed thirty years ago today. (I know, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.) Here is the poem I found digging through his words tonight. words with john there are places I rememberall my life though some have changedhold on world, world hold onIt’s gonna be alrightyou gonna see the…
caught by surprisewe say — like a fly ballor a base runner —caught, perhapslike a falling heirloom –in the nick of time but not tonight –I was . . . taken by surpriselike a hostage ora dog from the shelter —out of my routineand off to the theaterby the dancer I know best then we…
When we came out of the restaurant, the air was raw – even people who know what real winter is would have shared my weather report. The wind was biting and we all braced ourselves as we walked to the car. We went out on a winter’s night because Reuben, my father-in-law, turned eighty today….
The first Sunday of the month means we celebrate Communion at our church, as in many Protestant congregations. Of all the things we do together in worship, Communion lands at the top of the list for me: we remember the story that binds us together in word and in action, we feed one another, and…