beauty – how faint a whisper

to be a refugee

61 days ago I came out of six weeks in the mountains in Wyoming. Yesterday, I went back to the mountains. This time to the Adirondacks – my home mountains in many ways. It was a whirlwind trip – eleven hours of driving to hike for ten, an 18 mile slog up and down AllenContinue reading “to be a refugee”

for my friend, on her wedding day

I woke up early this morning, easing out of bed and lacing up sneakers to slip out into the dawn. Down the driveway and onto the road I ran into the early stillness, the mist swirling around the edges of the woods like steam, the air quiet, the broken blacktop empty. I rounded the cornerContinue reading “for my friend, on her wedding day”

Easter weekend

Thursday As often as the story seems to start with the lone figure, bleeding in the garden it really began yesterday and every day before. I forget to remember, vision narrowed in my circumstantial tunnel that He was in the beginning with God. With God. Eternally present, He entered time. Do I feel the acheContinue reading “Easter weekend”

thoughts from a city in November

This time last year, I was in Chicago, staying downtown in a hotel on the waterfront with a friend who was attending a conference, then doing a reverse commute out to the suburbs every day to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law. It was about a 10 minute walk from the hotel to theContinue reading “thoughts from a city in November”

worthwhile

Early morning found me driving out of the city, the mist seeming to rise from my heart as surely as the sun was burning it from the land around me. I left the highway for a curvy small-town road, and then one without lines or shoulders or rails, and followed it between empty hills, theContinue reading “worthwhile”

wonder

“The practice of paying attention is the rarest of gifts because it depends upon the harshest of disciplines. So uncommon is it for us to grasp the beauty and mystery of ordinary things that, when we finally do so, it often brings us to the verge of tears. Appalled by our own poverty, we awakeContinue reading “wonder”

snow

We got some great snow after Christmas. I was like a little kid, as with last year’s winter being so incredibly lame, and the two before that spent in the African desert, I hadn’t seen this much snow for a very long time. It doesn’t so much look like this anymore. Instead New York hasContinue reading “snow”

a killing frost

I woke up this morning to this: I love living in a place with seasons. I love the way the cycle of nature; the death of fall and rebirth of spring; echo our death and rebirth in Christ. And I love that we can be reminded of this year after year after year. But thisContinue reading “a killing frost”