Can I say something honest to you? I grew up in a world that talked a lot about God — a lot — and I’m not always comfortable with the things that world taught me about him. Tonight, though, as I walk the streets on this darkest night of the year, I stop in front of a […]
Tag: faith
The Day the Light Overtakes Me …
Yesterday, I walk into the woods and into autumn’s first blush: red dogwoods and the crackle of dry leaves underfoot. And I find myself breathing a deep sigh that feels — strangely — like relief. Autumn is usually a hard season for me, in spite of the goodness of hot cider and apple-picking, boots and flannel […]
The Wandering Soul, on Open Seas …
In the Christian high school I attended, once upon a time, there was a lot of talk about where we’d build our house. The wise man, Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, built his house on the rock, but the fool built his house on the sand, so that when the rains came and the waters […]
When I am on my knees at the water’s edge …
I go down to the river with my camera. The water is slowing to ice but the shoreline is still wet, the grass flecked with drops like diamonds. Maybe tears. I get down on my knees and part the dead rushes, brown tufts, looking for green. I am thinking of a certain kindred spirit, who has been […]
Because sometimes the person who needs your compassion the most … is you.
I’m posting today as part of 1000 Voices for Compassion — a simple call for one thousand individuals to interpret and write about the need for human compassion, each in their own way. Me? I’m here to suggest something that at first sounds counterintuitive: if we’re going to practice compassion for others, sometimes we first need […]
An Offering, Left in the Amphitheater at Elmwood Park: Day Twenty-Six
This post is part of the Secret Messages Project. Every day for thirty days, I’ll leave my words in places where they might be found — or might never be found at all. I hope you’ll join me. * Yesterday I park my car downtown, on Franklin, and walk toward Elmwood Park, in a sunlit avenue of […]
