highway eighty-four ran due east across theCentral Texas night, I remember the moonrising over the top of the telephone poles the road was lonely enough for me to turnmy headlights off in deference and drivein the dark to the light as if I would reach it every Sunday night after, I drove and waitedfor the…

I woke up before everyone else in the house this morning, thanks to Gracie, our youngest Schnauzer. I started the coffee pot and then started looking for something to read, having already devoured the latest issue of The Nation yesterday morning. I remembered packing some books among the pots and pans that have traveled with…

When my family gets together, the conversation eventually turns to church. On my Cunningham side, it’s the family business going back three generations and we love to talk. On my Brasher side, I married a minister who dives into her faith and her profession with both head and heart; we all have a lot to…

As Ginger and I looked through the Yellow Pages last Saturday trying to find a phone number for Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, I began to notice the names of the churches as sort of a “found” poem. Here, then, is what we found: Christian Names First, FriendshipGalilee, Grace, GethsemaneMounts Calvary, Carmel, Sinai, ZionNew Canaan, New…

Though it is only Tuesday, today is the day I start working on the turkey. I’m writing from the café at Whole Foods Market in Birmingham where I called last week to reserve my bird: free range, fresh, never frozen. “I want one of those birds who spends all day running and playing and sitting…

Here are a few of the new recipes I’m trying out this year. Some have already been checked out in the Don’t Eat Alone Test Kitchen, others we’ll all taste for the first time on Thursday. I think they’ll all measure up just fine. Here are a couple more vegetable ideas: roasted red curry carrots…

Today was the first of two Sundays Ginger and I get to share together between her pastorates, if you will. Next Sunday – the first Sunday in Advent – she will lead worship for the first time in Durham as the pastor at Pilgrim UCC. I will admit to leaning toward going nowhere to church…

I made it to Birmingham all in one piece; both me and my Cherokee were weary and heavy laden. Though still in transition, at least Ginger and I are in the same place, which is my in-laws’ house. Next week, my parents are coming to Birmingham and we are all going to celebrate Thanksgiving together….

According to Google Maps, my journey from Marshfield to Birmingham is 1201 miles – all of it on interstate highways. The path I chose to drive has taken me through one-fifth of our United States: yesterday I saw Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania; today I added Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama….

As I was working to find ways to get the last few things in the back of my Cherokee so I could head out of town, I found a mix CD I know I must have made but don’t remember doing so entitled, “Durham.” I put it in the small bag of things that was…