Where I live, the trees are in beautiful death swoons, immolating in falling flames of red and gold, orange and brown. Last week, after I finished my morning run I walked the rest of the way home. A few feet from the front door I noticed—the glory all around me! How had I run through […]
Seeing
Life and Death Lunch
I love to eat. But make it fast. So, along with twenty-five of my colleagues at a recent clergy conference, I grumble when we are told that at lunch today we will begin with an exercise in mindful eating. We are to get our food from the buffet, sit and wait for everyone to begin […]
The Charlie Brown Burning Bush
I love to run in new places. At home I run the same loop—it takes me down to Long Island Sound and it’s beautiful, but I know it so well that I can almost run it blind. This morning I am running in Knoxville, Tennessee, where my father lives. I am a little stiff. My […]
I Am Also a Bird
This morning, sipping my coffee, glancing out the window, I see a simple sparrow on the deck railing. Then in an instant she darts like an instantaneous thought and is gone. It was perhaps the first time I had seen a bird fly! Of course I have seen it thousands, but in that moment I […]
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Last Sunday I was greeting people as they walked out of church and into a beautiful spring morning. There were scores of people around me, spirits were high, people were lining up for coffee, laughing and talking. That’s when Melissa walked up to me. I grasped her hand, smiled and said how happy I was […]
Old News
Today when I went out to get the paper, I was smitten by the weeping cherry tree in the front garden. Its blossoms were like huge pink puff balls, swaying in a light breeze. It was May Day. The sun was vernally strong. But I was not here to admire a tree. I was on […]