A Word About … That Day
I’ve said it many times: “There are few days in our lives, which, when they have come to an end, will have changed us … forever.
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A Word About … Noticing
Once an editor asked me if I usually wrote about people I had actually met and things I had actually seen… and I said, “Yes.”
And he said, “Oh. Well, I was just wondering because if you only write about people you have actually met and things you have actually seen, sooner or later you will run out of interesting things to write.”
And I said, “That depends.”
And he said, ”Oh?”
And I said, “That depends on who you meet … and what you see when you meet them.”
And he said… “Oh.”
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The Storyteller
As a small child, I used to sit on my father’s lap on cold winter evenings and watch the fire as it danced in the fireplace. He would rock me in that saggy, cane-bottom chair we used to have; a rocker so worn and tired that every time someone sat down, the joints creaked and complained like an old man with lumbago. Back and forth. Back and forth we would nod together, my father and I, as we listened to that rocker sing its squeaky song.
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A Sequestered Reflection …
I had no idea, really, until I heard it on the news. I’m one of ‘those most vulnerable.’ I’ve heard it nearly every day, several times a day, for the past couple of weeks: I’m not sick, mind you. My underlying health issues aren’t compromised. I’m just … old.
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The Imposter …
We didn’t cut our own Christmas tree this year.
No stopping by the woods on a snowy evening.
No Currier and Ives snap shots;
No selfies of she and I, standing in some snowdrift,
Cold as a Minnesota winter, and surrounded by green forest;
No sock hats, or gloves or … the search for a perfect Christmas tree. -
Finished Well
HER NAME WAS Martha, and I got to preach her funeral, a few years back. When she died, she was old and frail … and she finished well. She taught the junior boys class when I was a kid, in the musty old…
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A Word About … Apples
A FRIEND CALLED one afternoon to tell us that fruit trees were on sale at a local store. Randee and I had been in the market for bare-root fruit trees because we wanted to plant an orchard on some property we own in northern California. With great eagerness, we searched out the bargain-priced trees. They were outside, in the back. One look told us why they were on sale.
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So, What Are You Reading These Daze?
Nope. I didn’t misspell the word in the title. I just decided that acknowledging the ‘daze’ of life is often easier than defining or describing what’s going on these ‘days.’ One of the ways I try to stay on track in the midst of so much uncertainty, political rhetoric, slant, spin, news (fake and otherwise)…
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The Word…
If developing a Classic State of Mind is about anything, It’s about paying attention to the ‘big pieces’ in life. It’s about being aware of the foundations “life” rests upon. Developing a Classic State of Mind focuses attention on those foundational elements. For me, my first foundation is The Book. There are lots of books,…
