Mid-March (early mud season)
Didn’t mean to go this far, but my insistent terrier – all eight pounds – tugs me toward the lumbered steps that..
More Stories from this Author
Borrowed Time
These forty days are Lent to us – not counting Sundays – a blessed space in time in which to step aside,..
Remembering
Where I left the car keys, the remote for the TV, that letter from the lawyer, my spectacles and pills. I must..
Compline – January 6th
No snow tonight, the air stands vibrant, crystal sharp, expectant, as if waiting for a bell, or gong, some resonating sound, to..
Tidings
This season’s festive cards that crush and crowd the mails bear witness to the limits, all those insistent boundaries that ever mark..
Essence of the Season
It’s about the giving, really. So that all those holy folk who moan about the marketing and such can tend to miss..
Seasonal hymns by J. Barrie Shepherd
Beloved Presbyterian poet J. Barrie Shepherd has crafted hymns for Advent, Christmas and welcoming in the new year set to familiar Christmas tunes..
Grave guard
Guarding a grave is hardly the most lively way to spend this early springtime night, or serve almighty Rome. Why would anyone..
What’s right about my church?
The very first, and best thing right about my church is that it’s not my church at all. If it was I’d..
Lux plus Veritas
We try to drive the dark away this shining season, string twining cords around our shrubs and trees, doors, windows, porches too,..
The Perseid Again (Mid-August 2016)
Not what I’d call a shower, exactly, but I did number twenty two of them, within one – past-midnight – hour, the..
Why I Still Go
For all their quirks and quibbles, all their foibles, squabbles, even downright donnybrooks, I find my people there. Recalcitrant, to be sure,..
Crossing The Bar (daily at the pool)
I am no longer diving; unwilling anymore to risk this way-too-well-worn frame to sudden impact, its old familiar pain, upon these..
Calling
Both less and more than family and good friends, still you belong there at the high moments and low, included in the..
Hold that balm in Gilead (Jeremiah 8:23)
There is a balm in Gilead, or so we love to sing in church. Yet the prophet raised a question, not an..
Six Easter answers
Not here. Try everywhere else. Don’t touch right now. But go instead, and tell. Now touch, give me your hand. Place it..
Aliyah
“He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” They went up to Zion in joy with an ancient song on their..
Meditating – Memorial Day
Graves are for decorating on this first of summer's weekends, surrounding them with ceremonies handed down by sagging-waisted, sweat-stained-hatted vets with flags,..
Pentecost Scenario
Did they leap and wave and dance together before that rushing mighty wind; conflagrate, perhaps, above those wild astonished heads, like one..
Easter Essentials
Strip away the perfect lilies massed along, across the chancel steps, the bright reflecting sight and sound of brasses, and the white..
Fair Exchange: Mid April – Maine
Gun metal gray the sky this morning and along the shore at dead low tide an on-shore wind blows spume across the..
Lent is…
Lent is a time to give up time in reaching for eternity, to set aside the minutes and the hours and make..
Nunc Dimittis
Well met, bright death! My search is at its end, these lingering years of pacing the tight streets and crooked alleyways, limping..
Time to be Careful
Since you never know just when, and where and how it might be manifest. Watch children and the rich in years, those..
Pre-Nativity: December 23
There had to be a star involved, stars have ever had that two-edged tendency toward portending, if given half a chance. Last..