Doing Thanks
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moreweekends are for the wide open fields
On Saturday, June 04 th, 2011For the whole earth to stretch like an invitation, for the wind to move you, run through you, for the fields white and ripe for the harvest, for making your life a seed of sacrifice that falls to the ground to reap bountiful joy. May your weekend be about the fields, kindest friends, the wide open, w...
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moreTo Set Up a Complete Nativity Scene:
On Wednesday, December 15 th, 2010It’s Day 85 of my life-after Guatemala that I set out the nativity; it’s only now that I remember that the baby would be about 85 days old too. It’s my only souvenir from Guatemala — a red soil formed Mary, three clay-combed wise men, a Babe the size of a thimble. Headbands for the girls, a thin woven bracelet for ...
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moreThe Great Giveaway
On Wednesday, December 01 st, 2010When they ask for a story I pull up blankets and cover them with words. That is what made them. And that is what sustains them and they need this before they can sleep, words to lay down on. So I pluck from thin air, the only way any story comes. Something from nothing, a gift handed down. “Once upon a time…” This will be one of those, a possibility. ...
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moreChristmas: Thinking about Whose Birthday It Is
On Wednesday, November 17 th, 2010I t’s been over ten years of nothing under the Christmas tree here. Strange, the way children teach men. :: It was dark, I do remember that. Bedtime. Smoothing back hair, kissing foreheads. On round moon hanging large outside the window, an ornament dangling off stars, decorating the night. I had gifts to wrap. So, pull up the blankets. Prayers. And the...
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morewhen you’re called to The Insignificant Significant
On Wednesday, November 10 th, 2010The child who lifted up a corner of my life and upended me was born on Remembrance Day and I am now three thousand miles away and two time zones to the east and how can I forget? It was her eyes. Bright, like dawn breaking, a light flooding over me living in the land of the shadow of death. How many times just this week do I flip through the photos of those twenty minutes that ...
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when you want the first step in fixing a broken world
On Wednesday, September 15 th, 2010I don’t know really how to come back to this space. What to write about, what to say, what doesn’t sound flippant, indifferent… negligent. When our Compassion team debriefed on our last night in Guatemala, each of us were asked to share the one image we would take home, share one word picture that encapsulated our experience. I couldn’t speak. I had no words. Just this...
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morethe one word that fixes a broken heart, this broken world
On Tuesday, September 14 th, 2010Water runs down the middle of the alley, a silver tear in the shadows, and I can hear a baby crying. I’m walking a narrow Guatemalan City street, a street without house numbers, mailboxes, doorbells — more like a path through tin dominoes rusted right through. Brown eyes lurk in doorways, peer out between barred gates. A girl in a grimy pink t-shirt kee...
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if you like your dreams and miracles explained
On Saturday, September 11 th, 2010Posting live from Guatemala City: When he stood up to speak, his hands stuffed nervous in his pockets, his right shoe tapping anxious, I had no idea that the whole ugly mask was going to fall straight off this thing. I guess I should have seen it coming in his eyes, in that flicker, the way he held his head. “I am in business management in college,” Daniel says, his black w...
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moreIf You need to remember Why You are Here
On Friday, April 09 th, 2010They were demure in the woods, a purple carpet rolled out after Easter for the resurrection of the King of Kings and the spring revival of all the snow sleeping world. … royal life rising up from the refuse of the brown and the crunching dry dead, and we’re brought low… … the tender worship lifting high… ...
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Giving the Gifts back to the Gift
On Monday, December 28 th, 2009The candles lit and the stockings hung by the fire and we, a motley crew, bring our gifts to the Gift. Such grander folks have gone before us. Folks like the unspeakably gracious couple who offer to sponsor Richard, shyly introduced here… to give the wild gift of Hope to a real little boy with real dreams. Another generous family who drops a line, asks if they too migh...
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moreweekends are for parent-love
On Saturday, October 24 th, 2009Ministering words (of so many — thank you) from the Mailbox: I‘ve put off writing this for a couple of days, but decided to go on and say ‘thanks’ for giving me a new outlook on my relationship with my dad. The post you had about being in the combine with your dad and kids, and the painful interaction between the two of you – well...
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Finding Real Shelter
On Monday, October 05 th, 2009We wake watching sky, October restless, her roll of clouds washboarding down day, her pressing them out smooth, smiling all sun, and then clouds rolling in again, folds of Autumn undecided. Under that first light sky, they run to the barn. Chores first, everyday always the first handful of hours for feeding of sows and piglets, and Little Girl and I, we line the helmets, match ...
