If We Can Admire Dutch Painting
July 9, 2024I’m reading a poem a day, which is like working through the strangest Spotify playlist, curated by someone with curious taste. Some do not appeal, some are incomprehensible, but a few are gems that become my own treasure. Here is one of the latter. The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz experienced national socialism after the German conquest, communism under Stalin, and life in the United States from 1960 to 2004, when he died. He experienced first-hand the dehumanizing consequences of reductionist philosophies that evolved from the Enlightenment. When his poems come up in the anthology I always find connection. In his…
A Joy for Ever
As I rode my bike this morning I knew I was experiencing that rare gift: a perfect day. These are the long idyllic days of Vermont, when the sun saunters up the vast parabola and down to…
Telling a Better Story
I am typing at my desk at the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference, in Black Mountain, North Carolina. (If any bad guys are reading this, I’ll have you know I left behind the forester. Don’t let…
8 reasons to keep a five-year memory book
Nine years ago I started my first one-year journal. I’m grateful for eight reasons. 1. Confining thoughts to four, five, or six tight lines requires the writer to be succinct and brief, a habit that has benefitted…
How dare you?
I should write what I know. What qualifies me to get in the head of a boy?
Once Upon a Time
This Sunday I launch The Walker Tales on my church when I do my third Children’s message. The Walker Tales is a series of stories that follow Blind Bill who becomes Walker on his journey to become…
