cynicism comes with coffee as artificial as sweetener we’ve grown accustomed to the bitter aftertaste negative is normal critiques and criticisms pass for conversation in a culture short on courage and long on loud gratitude is hard work to choose to be thankful requires the tenacity of a heart
A couple of weeks ago, I took a Friday morning to do an exercise from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write , which was to construct a time line of my life. I left the house thinking I would be gone a couple of hours. Almost three hours later, I
Mondays are long days in the restaurant at Duke because, in the parlance of the kitchen, we have to “rebuild our prep”: we have to make all things (0r most things) new. We are open Monday through Thursday nights, and, well, we don’t really want to serve stuff that
As I was reading this morning, I reached for David Rosenberg’s A Poet’s Bible: Rediscovering the Voices of the Original Text and his translation of parts of Job and Ecclesiastes took me on a wonderful little journey. the grace to be still in the flow of all creation
I have several friends who are authors. Not that I’ve ever met them, you understand. They don’t even know who I am. Yet I count them as friends because their words have helped me to learn and grow. And so I carry deep gratitude and affection toward Madeleine
As the remnants of Ida make their way through our neighborhood, I thought tonight might be a good one to think about rain songs. I'll start with a great clip of Usher dancing along side of Gene Kelley and "Singing in the Rain." I'll
The loading dock area behind the West Union at Duke, in which my restaurant is located, is also where we go to throw away our trash. The singular term no longer applies because of the way we are expected to separate and organize our refuse for disposal. There is a
It’s not so much the words as the way they sometimes line up, the way they are placed on the page -- single syllables can speak, tear open false healings, deep calling to deep with faith and familiarity both brand new and ages old. I saw these four words: our
I’m a collector. Not a keep-it-in-the-box-so-it-will-be-valuable-someday kind of guy, as much as I like to keep things around for a few days (weeks, years) before I let them go. Things like grocery store receipts, ticket stubs, random pieces of
I had a camera once that could take pictures with everything in focus, from front to back, each detail crisp, sharp, and identifiable. I can’t do that with my own eyes, as I learned again this week, driving through Duke Forest, the variegated veil of fall flavors cascading down
Remember when Alanis Morissette told us irony was “like rain on your wedding day” – which is mostly sad and not ironic at all? Well, it’s not raining here in Durham, but I have my own offering of irony: I’ve been all set for a post on Sabbath for
This came into my field of vision this morning and I thought it too good to keep to myself. From Wallace Stevens -- "Ask Me" Peace, Milton