Epitaph on a Tyrant W.H. Auden (1907-1973) Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;He knew human folly like the back of his hand,And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,And when he cried the little children died in […]
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Prayer in Time of War
The Invasion has begun, the headline blares in towering letters, all in bold. Shelling. Number dead. Civilians covered in blood. When I sit quietly this morning, the reading—something about God’s unconditional love—seems flat, distant, untrue. Then the book closes and it is time to settle in, quiet the mind, be still and invite the Presence. […]
Cat Tale
After almost 19 years prowling this house, Milo has died. It was a slow going, and he needed a little help in the end to make it out of his failed body. I carried him in to the vet’s wrapped in a towel. Carried him out in a bag which I covered with the towel […]
Advice at 30,000 Feet
I am not one for striking up conversations on airplanes, but my brother is. He was maybe 22, he told me this past weekend we spent together, and this older man sat beside him. A simple conversation began. As the man spoke, Michael sensed that he was somehow successful, even wise. So he asked the […]
If I Can Just Get Past This
It began, as these things always do, with a routine visit to the dentist. Except that this time she noticed what looked like an abrasion on the roof of my mouth. Had anything happened, she asked, that might have caused it? I might have burned my mouth on a piping hot slice of cheese pizza, […]
When the Head Drops Into the Heart
The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter. ― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking None of us can be sure of half the things we claim to know or believe. The congressional bill we’re either for […]
How I Turned My House Into Pompeii (And What I Learned)
Crash. Pam, from downstairs, “[Unintelligible outburst punctuated by very intelligible curse.]” I close my laptop and hurry to the scene. Pam is standing in front of a kitchen cabinet, white from the knees down. The shelf has given way and a bag of flour has fallen, exploding on the floor. Two pounds “Let me get […]
Creativity and Hope
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery It was hard work today, transplanting things that should have been dug up more than a month ago. But today was the day. Snow was coming, and that […]