This poem was passed along by a friend from long ago: Sarah McManus Bickle. Her first email did not say who wrote it. When I inquired, i found out she did! Sarah is an ESL teacher at Jasper High School in Dallas, Texas. Great work, Sarah! How Black Bean Tacos Saved My Life In the…
Last week I had a small catering gig for a gathering of the In-Care students for the Southeast Area of the Mass. Conference of the UCC. In-care students are our seminarians. Various congregations take them “in-care,” which means we provide support and encouragement. If you are going to support and encourage people, you gotta feed…
My friend, Mia, responded to my post, “re-member, then” with this comment and quote: Your post made me think of a James Hillman quote – “our lives my be determined less by our childhood than by the way we have learned to imagine our childhoods”. James Hillman is a new name to me, but he’s…
One of my memories of teenage trips to Six Flags Over Texas was bridge made of barrels across some fabricated pond. The barrels meant each step had its own tilt: the walk was not straight or easy, but at least you had ropes along the sides to hang on to. The last couple of weeks…
When I was growing up, Saturdays meant Taco Salad for lunch. My mother made this wonderful mixture of beef, beans, lettuce, cheese, and Fritos that may have mostly consisted of opening cans and packages, but tasted like home. We never got tired of Saturday lunches. It is still one of my favorite meals. I don’t…
My friend Patty sent me a link to an article in the Boston Globe which began: “Last year around this time, a Cardiff University psychologist named Dr. Cliff Arnall scored some publicity with his declaration that January 24 is the most depressing day of the year.” Alex Beam’s wonderful column went on to describe the…
Years ago I wrote a children’s story called Malcolm and Noah Go Shopping, based on an old Far Side cartoon. I sent it to a couple of publishers and got one response that said my story was not publishable because the snakes did not act consistent with their species. In the story, the snakes end…
When we were in seminary, my housemate, Burt, and I lived on very little. We were school bus drivers when we weren’t in class, which paid about $400 a month in the late seventies. We each budgeted $10 a week for food, which meant we bought our bread at the Mrs. Baird’s Thrift Shop (day…
Of all the wonderful things there are to eat and drink in this world, I must put Guinness at the top of my list. A well poured pint (and there is an art to the pouring) is a tasty pleasure that is difficult to match. A reasonably close second on my list is ice cream….
One of my morning rituals is to listen to The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor, which plays at the end of Morning Edition on WGBH, one of our local NPR stations. Each day, he makes note of significant birthdays in the literary world and then reads a poem. He closes each segment by saying, “Be…