I’ve spent a good bit of time today thinking about someone else’s words and actions that have nothing to do with me directly and everything to do with me – no, us – in ways that run deeper than we know. My friend Gordon Atkinson is in the Dominican Republic working with a group called…

Everything was new for our new year: new place, new people, new traditions. We drove up to Raleigh, as Andy and Barney used to say, for their First Night celebration, one of the grandchildren of the original First Night in Boston. We heard some good bluegrass, Ginger saw an African dance company, and we spent…

Everything was new for our new year: new place, new people, new traditions. We drove up to Raleigh, as Andy and Barney used to say, for their First Night celebration, one of the grandchildren of the original First Night in Boston. We heard some good bluegrass, Ginger saw an African dance company, and we spent…

I’ve been staring at the screen for some time this evening because I feel like I have nothing new to say, or at least nothing new to say that’s not about our move. Most all of my thought and energy of late has been about me: how I will move, what I will do, how…

Yesterday I sang at the funeral of a man I had never met and I cried. He sounded like a great guy – someone I would have liked and would have shared a great deal in common. His family loved him. The line that killed me was his son-in-law saying, “I’m so grateful that my…

Yesterday was Ginger’s last Sunday of vacation, so I spent the morning, once more, reading Sara Miles. The heart of her book is about starting a food pantry at her church in San Francisco. In the process of telling her story, she says some profound and confrontive things about faith and action. As a grateful…

One of the things I admire most about Chef is his thriftiness: nothing goes to waste. Last Saturday our produce supplier left a case each of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries – about $130 worth of fruit — when all we had ordered were a couple of pints of each to use as garnishes on…

I drove home tonight from a long day at work, thinking about the different qualities of waiting. What came to mind was a story I wrote several years ago. I’m not very practiced at fiction, but I’m proud of this story. If you will endulge me, here it is. __________________________ Waiting Room I do not…

Today is the forty-second anniversary of Zambian Independence. I was living in Lusaka, the capital of the British colony of Northern Rhodesia, on the day it became the nation of Zambia. For months we had practiced our new national anthem in school so we would be able to sing out proudly when we became our…

I was listening to Weekend Edition on NPR as I drove to work onSaturday and was fortunate enough to hear a wonderful interview with Chris Smither, a folk/blues singer from this neck of the woods. He has a new album out and he sang a couple of songs. My favorite was “Origin of Species,” which…