“Can you get that bread out of the oven?” Pam calls to me. “I think it’s done.” I open the oven door and a soft cloud of heat drifts over me. Then the smell wafts out, wave after wave—the yeasty aroma, the malted perfume, the toasted whiff of . . . I don’t know—heaven. Or […]
Heaven
I Don’t Need Heaven
It is a moment of no significance. We are standing Christmas Day in the outdoor kitchen—adults in parkas and kids cavorting—gathered around the big propane burner my wife pulls out to fry doughnuts or fish and hush puppies or French fries, like her father did. Today it is paper-thin potato slices, bound with butter and […]
Parable of the Twin Fetuses
Life each day presents us with the unknown. What will happen? What will not happen? Our great fear is simply not knowing what comes next—and our ultimate fear is of the end. What happens when we die? The big fear—of death—is expressed in all the little fears that roil our hearts, the hundred things each […]
Everything We Need Is Here
The secret of life takes us into unbelievable paradox—literally. We cannot believe it. The miraculous appears in the ordinary, the eternal hides among the transitory, the universal lays in the lap of the particular . . . and we can’t see it. That’s because in our yearning for the divine, we’ve always been taught to […]
The Shock of Heaven
This is called “The Best Poem in the World,” which isn’t true. But it is the best doggerel in the world. Read it and see if you don’t agree. The Best Poem in the World I was shocked, confused, bewildered as I entered Heaven’s door, Not by the beauty of it all, by the lights or […]