It’s late and I’ve been staring at the page for a long time. Nothing has appeared. My mind has wandered from John the Baptist to the Magi (they wander in and out of my thoughts all through Advent) to conversations over cooking at work tonight to who knows what, but none of those thoughts has…
Ginger, Ella, and I went downtown for the annual Durham Christmas Parade and Tree Lighting. Here is Ella, up close and personal. If you needed proof that I live in the South, here it is: a Chik-fil-a float. We now live in the Bull City, so here are Ginger and Ella next to the Bull…
I spent the day running errands, mailing a few A Faraway Christmas CDs, and picking up what we needed to do a couple of things on the house before my in-laws come in a little over a week, which means I drove a lot and had incidental conversations with people I don’t know. My favorite…
Look at the photographand you will see a littleboy standing in the frontyard; he is small anddid not dress himself inthe baggy shorts, the tinystriped t-shirt or the smallsailor hat, but he’s dressedand he looks a bit puzzled.The colors of the stripesare long ago forgotten;the image is black andwhite. Who knows whyhe is standing there,…
Many summers ago, Ginger and I were leading a youth camp for a group of churches we did not know well. One of the morning classes offered to the young people was massage (not a class I would have chosen to offer to teenagers, but that’s another post). I happened to be walking through the…
I was a little over halfway through my first semester of seminary when a college friend called to say he was passing through town and wanted to take me to lunch. About halfway through the meal, I found out he was selling insurance and was hoping I would become a customer. I wasn’t really in…
Mondays are busy at the restaurant anyway, but today had its own pace. Because of the holiday and the fact that the Duke students were gone, we had been closed since Tuesday night; everything had to be made new today. Still, when I left the house this morning, I put my two Advent books in…
It’s been a long time since I felt ready. Perhaps it’s because this past year has been one of settling in, rather than moving on. Maybe it’s because I’m an hour and a half away from December and I don’t feel depressed (which is new for this time of year – at least in recent…
I’m not sure what it is – the pie, the lazy day, my thankful state of mind and heart, the fact that other blogs are posting poems – but I have landed on a couple of great poems this week. Today’s offering comes from another one of my favorites, Mary Oliver. I have posted her…
After a day full of thanks and food, I sat down to write and was found, once more, by one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, W. S. Merwin. (Thanks, Christine.) Listen with the night falling we are saying thank youwe are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railingswe…