Soon after I moved to this area, I watched a local schoolteacher perform a rap geology lesson about the glaciers that formed this valley. “Ice, ice, baby!” he intoned as he threw down his moves. That joyful, tongue-in-cheek teaching shaped my relationship to this landscape. When I looked out my office window, it was the …
We moved last week. Unlike the moves of young adulthood—a carload of boxed clothes, records and books—this was an epic engagement. Cleaning was a monumental task, undertaken with lots of help. Saying goodbye to the land was painfully dislocating. But what really killed me was sorting through boxes. We moved a lot when I was …
This time next week I’ll be on my way to my brother’s memorial service. In the back of the car—provided that the U.S. border folks approve—will be some precious family items. Precious, in that my ancestors cared for these things, and handed them on; and precious, in that they will be gifts for my brother’s …
“Are you kidding me?” I thought as she sat down at the head of the table. She was a peroxide blond wrapped tightly in a V-necked, bright red sweater that thoroughly displayed her assets. In my opinion, she wasn’t the appropriate poster child for a discussion on spirituality and recovery. Then she opened her mouth …
This article was written for The Contemplative Society June 2026 Newsletter Western medicine has recently “discovered” the interstitium, the interconnected connective tissue in human bodies; in fact, they now believe that our interstitial tissue actually acts as a third circulation system. “Discovered” is a joke: these tissues have always been there. But westerners considered them …
In her short and remarkable life, the musician Eva Cassidy recorded some rollicking versions of old standards. In my favorite, “How Can I Keep From Singing?,” she positively belts out the chorus: “No storm can shake my inmost calm while to this rock I’m clinging; if Love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can …
Several years ago, a young and lusty robin showed up outside our bedroom windows. It made its presence known by flying at the windows, hard. It did this over and over and over, starting about 5 am. It was, we assume, attacking the young and lusty robin it saw in the mirrored window so as …
I am writing this just ten days before Good Friday, a dozen days before Easter. I feel compelled to speak of these central feasts of the church in relationship with the world around us. It feels odd to call Good Friday a central feast, doesn’t it? Most of us feel like the resurrection is the …
My great-nieces introduced me to the phrase “cheese tax.” I thought they were referring to the duty paid when importing dairy products, but it quickly became clear that they were talking about dogs. “Cheese tax” is that variable percentage of human food offered as canine appeasement. Faced with the doleful, bottomless stare of a dog, …
When I was a kid, we lived within blocks of two different libraries. The city library was an imposing edifice of stone and stained glass and silence; the county library a big, well-lit room in the redbrick county office building. While its architecture was uninspiring, that county library was a treasure trove, a warren of …
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