On Turning Eighty-Nine
I've never ... been this old before, worn a body like this before, known a mind like this before, lived a life like this before, writes J. Barrie Shepherd.
J. Barrie Shepherd is an award-winning poet and an honorably retired PC(USA) pastor, the author of many books.
I've never ... been this old before, worn a body like this before, known a mind like this before, lived a life like this before, writes J. Barrie Shepherd.
A poem by J. Barrie Shepherd.
An abundance of horizon draws our gaze, delineates our days here at our rock-fast retirement center at the shore. Well-seasoned eyes seem..
Those head bindings rolled and laid aside in a separate place, the way the sympathetic gardener gently calls her by her name,..
There comes a point, halfway between the ashes and the lilies, when you stop and ask yourself “Just how did I get..
These Lenten days are loaned to us, set aside – beg, borrow or steal – from winter’s numbing latterness so we remember..
Gratitude is the way to go. Not only with the daily stuff – that too, of course – but at the end,..
Full body search, and scan unlock intimidating gates toward the so-called Welcome Center of the Federal Maximum Security Facility, in a late..
Amid sheepish shepherds, embarrassed kings, awkward angels with their bent-coat-hanger wings – my most unforgettable character is the tender-hearted lad assigned to..
An invitation to go deeper, to penetrate the hard-worn surface of our habitual this-and-that, permit entry to images, suggestions, even fears that..
Black Friday opened up before Halloween this year, and the customary counselors are predicting drastic shortages, delays and empty shelves. The supply..
To Give Thanks… is to remember how it feels to experience belonging, to look long around a laden table and be glad..
Love is such a lovely word, gracious, spacious, capacious to a fault, embracing every blessed thing from those little smiley faces we..
Take time to pay attention in this chill and penitential season. Set aside some now-and-then for simply now, leave then for later,..
This stark primordial dust fresh imposed between my eyes this February day fades swiftly and is gone, no necessity to rub or..
A modest little note, it was, on the side of the box at the foot of the tree. BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED! But..
These thanks we give fit best with simplest things, the ordinary benisons we scarcely note as our times go fleeting past. This..
Never been quite sure just what it meant, precisely what I was affirming my belief in, as I entered the Credal home..
Beyond the fragrant lilies and hydrangeas crowding the chancel, beyond the festive Easter bonnets still occasionally scattered bright across the pews, beyond..
This winter ending day which dawns in quiet chill recalls another morning born in thunderclap and rending as the gates of hell..
The word is that springtime arrives late this week, yet here on the Maine coast we have little to show for it...
(from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead) Just whence is that “thence” He shall come from? And –..
After more than eighty of such purple seasons, you might think there would be nothing left to look toward, get ready for...
is to remember how it feels to experience belonging, to look long around a laden table and be glad to claim a..
Headed back home we were, after a day of strange reports and rumors. Some of the women had gone early to wash..
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