-
Gone to Seed
There’s the expression “gone to seed, ” used to describe something that’s outlived it’s purpose, or something that has been let go to the point of deterioration. It suggests negligence, loss of value, and at least as it pertains to nature, an entry into the last phase of life. The summer garden, for instance, has past…
-
A Light in the Fog
While DC is enjoying the warmth and sunshine of a truly perfect April weekend, I am on a mountaintop in Tennessee, shrouded in a drizzly, forty-five degree fog. Sewanee, The University of the South, is a small, Episcopal liberal arts college and school of Theology that sits atop 13,000 acres on the Cumberland plateau in…
-
Jonquil time
It’s now more commonly known as the daffodil, but when I was growing up it was the jonquil that signaled the arrival or spring more than any other. The word rolls off my mother’s southern tongue like liquid sunshine, rich and thick, and if colors had a sound there would be no other for the…
-
Rites of Retreat
This weekend I had the pleasure of going on retreat with the Metropolitan United Methodist Church UMW group. Less than two hours out of DC near Charlestown, West Virginia, yet a world away, the PriestField Pastoral Center provided a beautiful and comfortable setting for thirty six city women to leave it all behind. The first…
-
I LOVE that Book!
It’s February, the month of love, and since I’m a writer I thought it would be fun to explore the concept of book passion. We hear people say it all the time, that they love books and love reading, and given the fact that Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, offers over 8 million titles…
-
Tips for the Tour
Our musician son has been on a cross country tour with The Greg Burroughs Band for the last six months. They were here in DC with us for a couple of days between gigs, so we got to hear a lot about life on the road. They are all great fun– intelligent, entertaining, engaging, polite…
-
The Pause
I just finished reading a book by Grammy award winning bassist, Victor Wooten, entitled The Music Lesson; A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music. The story presents ten basic elements of music as potent instructional tools for life. Each one of these elements–Notes, Articulation, Technique, Emotion, Dynamics, Rhythm, Tone, Phrasing, Rest and Listening–is explored by…
-
A Winter Walk
Usually by this time we’ve had at least one or two good snows, but not this year. There have even been enough warm days to bring up a few green shoots here and there. I’m also seeing a smattering of yellow forsythia blossoms as I walk down towards the river, but they look dazed and…
-
Sweeping and Seeking
As far as the true Christmas season goes, popular culture is not in sync with the church calendar. The season officially begins not on Black Friday, but on December 24th, and ends not after the presents are unwrapped, but twelve days later when we celebrate the appearance of the three kings on The Feast of…
-
Another Year
It’s New Year’s Eve in the late 1960′s. My friend and I, my two brothers and a couple of other neighborhood kids are sitting on the floor in my parents’ bedroom playing Monopoly and watching Guy Lombardo on TV. We’re drinking Ginger Ale and eating cinnamon toast, potato chips and french onion dip, candy canes, chocolate…