advent journal: birthday sing-a-long . . .
I’ve been sitting here for an hour or so trying to figure out what to write today. I’ve finally decided to just sing a long.
Peace
Milton
I’ve been sitting here for an hour or so trying to figure out what to write today. I’ve finally decided to just sing a long.
Peace
Milton
In the last few minutes before we had to leave the house in order for me to catch the 8:32 train to New Haven, I realized I needed a new book to accompany me on the journey over the next few days. I perused the bookshelf and pulled out a novel suggested to me by…
A season isn’t something that befalls you, it is something that you inhabit. —John Berger, The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger habitation in the fulness of time they hit the road when the days were accomplished they stayed a couple of nights then they went back home when the king got angry…
For a long time now, the comma has been an important symbol for the United Church of Christ. You have to love a denomination that finds metaphor in punctuation. The idea started with the “God Is Still Speaking” campaign that played off of a Gracie Allen quote—“Never put a period where God has placed a…
The book I started on my ride to New York this morning was Unpacking the Boxes: A Memoir of a Life in Poetry by Donald Hall. A couple of pages in, I found this sentence: Their house was always dark: it felt like held breath. (5) The sentence stayed with me. When I sat down…
passive resistance more mornings than not I find myself wishing there was no passive voice. I lose patience with a world where things are said, bills are passed, mistakes are made, women are harassed, damage is done, and lives are lost, as though the mistakes make themselves, the violence happens without perpetrators, and the shootings…
weather report my father once told me I should become a weather forecaster “you can be wrong everyday and you’ll never get fired’ it’s going to snow all night six to twenty inches they say a reminder that we’re all guessing when it comes to the weather by morning the snow will be deeper than…
Perfect, Happy Birthday dear Milton.
John Denver will always take me back and make me feel so much.
Thank you, Milton. I’ve not thought of this song in such a long time!
And Happy Birthday.
That is just so beautifully perfect! Happy Birthday, Milton! May you live a long and wonderful life…impacting the world, just as your dad did! Obviously, you are doing just that! CHEERS to YOU today!!
You could not have picked a more appropriate song. Thanks (again, and again, and again), for sharing.
Happy Birthday Milton. Each one is a blessing
I’ve loved John for decades! So interesting to listen to these words at the age of 63. I feel like I’ve been to church! Thanks–and happy birthday.
Dear Milton: If the collected works of John Denver, and I admit that I still remember all of the words, get stuck in my head, you will be hunted down and will not enjoy another birthday. (We have mostly preachers but one little axe murderer whacking away in the Tyson family tree. I hate to call Carlton an “axe murderer,” as if he never did anything else, but that’s life–one little axe murder and it’s axe murder, axe murder, axe murder the rest of your life.) In any case, I do hope you have a happy birthday and many more to come.
And I do hope you can autograph my copy of Keeping the Feast one day soon. It’s as a challenging as croissants from scratch, in its way, but at least as comforting as open-faced chicken pot pie. Above all, I love your intuitive understanding, which runs throughout this book, that, damn the cost of three more cups of wine, the communion cup must never run dry. Yours will not, I know that much.
It’s okay about the John Denver. Okay, it happened, okay, but I played Lee Dorsey’s “Sitting Here La La Waitin’ for My Ya Ya” four or five times and all was well.
With every good wish,
Tim Tyson
amen! hugs today.
Milton,
Claud has shared several of your posts with me. Your words always make me think, smile and/or cry. Throw in a little John Denver and I’m hooked! Today, I subscribed to your blog. It’s a good day to be grateful for this good life. Happy Birthday!
Kelly
Happy Birthday, Milton! Thanks for sharing your own “poems and prayers and promises” here over the years. (And the recipes, too!) It truly has been “fine to have the chance to hang around.” Blessings to you and Ginger today and always.
John Denver: always makes me smile. Thanks for sharing this song today. And may you have a happy birthday and a wonderful year. Your blog always makes me think and often makes me smile!