We got to see Mavis Staples (whom I wrote about not long ago) and the Blind Boys of Alabama last night. Wait – there’s more. Yesterday morning, I got an email from the Duke ticket office saying we could come early and hear Mavis in conversation with Tim Tyson, who
I don’t remember where I got the idea. What I do remember is it wasn’t original to me. I handed out Post-It® notes to the twenty or so young people gathered in the large room of our retreat cabin and told them to rename the items they
When I began working at the restaurant at Duke, my traveling companion was Ramon, a wonderful guy from Mexico who was interested in doing more in the kitchen than just washing dishes. He’s a good guy, he works hard, his English is limited, and he really wants to learn.
One of my least favorite things is to enter a theater after the movie has begun. I don’t just like to be there for the start of the film, I like to be seated and settled for the previews and even some of the ads that flash by while
When Ginger started her Transfiguration sermon this morning by talking about those who are attracted to the more mystical elements of our faith and those who steer towards the more practical, I thought about Bob Wiley’s words in the movie What About Bob? when his psychiatrist asked him why
I first saw the phrase in the title of her note; I’d never thought of it. I’m sure it’s old news in Toronto and Alberta where they’ve moved beyond poker-playing dogs to a world where mice come out checking, skating, slap-shotting, even riding the
Say it loud: I’m white and male and not very proud. And it’s all thanks to two NPR stories. The first came as I was driving to work. WUNC, our local station hosts a program called The State of Things . Frank Stasio’s topic today was “Hillary and
After what I saw of the State of the Union address last night, I couldn’t help but think of Steve Earle’s “Christmas in Washington,” which he wrote in the late nineties. Ten years later, the parties’ names are interchangeable. When Steve introduces the song, he often says, “This
What’s the point of pain? That’s the question that ran through my mind last night as I drove home from work. When I wrote about remembering a few posts back, one of the lines from the clip of Jerry Orbach singing, “Try to Remember” was Why is that
I intended to write more this evening, but instead I got to paint. My friend Doug is in town and he is an artist. I asked for a painting lesson, so tonight we sat down in the dining room and he constructed a still life centered around a ceramic Winnie
Gaza is one of the Palestinian Territories on the border between Israel and Egypt and a part of the land taken by Israel in the 1967 war. Conditions these days have continued to worsen because of an Israeli blockade on the area that has not allowed even food and fuel
The Writer's Almanac put me back in touch with a poem I deeply love yesterday. Since I'm struggling to find words of my own tonight, I'll let Robert Frost do the talking. Birches Toward Peace, Milton