We are in for at least seven days of real winter here in Delaware — highs in the twenties, lows in the teens and single digits. I am delighted! Having lived eleven years on the California coast and thirty in central Texas, I missed the winters I knew as a child in Rhode Island and […]
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Before Church Begins
In the half hour just before church begins, signs are turned around and banners hung. I pick up the high-class litter on the sidewalk outside the gallery empty of art. I order a hot mocha latte to go. A happy family of three walks away to the east. To the west, three police cars, their […]
Every One A Familiar Face
What do you make of it? It happened on Christmas Eve, at midnight mass. As I looked around the crowd, I was surprised to see that every face felt familiar, even the faces of total strangers. I recognized each person as someone with whom I had shared my life even though I did not know […]
Midnight Never Happened
Every year, midnight on New Year’s Eve never happens for thousands of people. It can be unsettling. Midnight never happened for my wife and I in the year 2000. In the last hour of the year, we were driving east. It was 11:30 p.m. or so on December 31, New Year’s Eve, and we were […]
Winter Snowfall
One reason I celebrate Christmas is to acknowledge the mystery of the spiritual become material; God made manifest. The highest spirituality — beyond our comprehension and beyond our proper naming — has been made individual, human, and cuddly: Jesus, a newborn baby in a manger. This is a theological concept so strange many cannot comprehend […]
Uncle Jay’s Flag
This 48-star American flag will not be ignored. It is the memorial flag of U.S. Army veteran Jay Henry, my wife’s uncle and, by marriage, my uncle. My wife knows almost nothing about him. Call him an unknown soldier. He was his mother’s first illegitimate child, fathered by some married man who never acknowledged him. […]
Migrating Canada Geese
The high-flying formations of Canada geese still delight my 79-year-old eyes. Often heard before seen, honking their way across the sky, they seem wild and free. Me? I am rooted, rooted for now, still living in the same house my wife and I purchased 25 years ago. I do not take stability for granted. Even […]
The World Wants Us Happy
Last week, leading a discussion about taming the ten thousand things, I said, “The world wants us to be happy.” It was a bold, reckless statement coming from someone usually so careful in his metaphysical claims, yet it captures my fundamental optimism, fickle as it may be in practice. Reality is not a clenched fist […]
Small Victories – Storm Door Latch Fixed
The front storm door was not latching. It latched a few months ago; why not now? Idea No. 1 — there is something between the door and the jamb. So I cleaned out a small mud dauber’s nest and other debris from where the door seated. That did not help. Idea No. 2 — something […]
My Troubling Insight in brief
I hate pleasing him, yet I keep talking about him. I am as guilty as anyone, his co-conspirator. See here! Even now I am talking about him! No name is needed. He gets his supporters to cheer and his detractors to howl. He keeps us ringside, clapping and booing, a ringmaster who compels our attention […]