lenten journal
Congress passed a bill yesterday making lynching a hate crime--a hundred and fifty years late. As the bill states, “At least 4,742 people, predominantly African Americans, were reported lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968,” and so, in the election year 2020, Congress finally said lynching was
lenten journal
I’ve been thinking all day of how to meet you here, as my Lenten Journal begins for another year. Tonight I was looking through some notes and found this quote from James Baldwin in an article in Brainpickings. Once people know what they know, they make the unconscious assumption
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Last summer, Ginger and I got to go to Dyersville, Iowa and visit the farm where Field of Dreams was filmed. The baseball diamond is still there, between the house and the cornfield. We were two of only a handful of people walking around, so we played catch, me on
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My family moved to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia in 1957. Back then, that required sailing on a passenger freighter from New York to Beira, Mozambique, which took thirty-two days. I turned one in the course of the journey from Texas to Africa. None of us had much idea of what we
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A friend gave me a book for Christmas--One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle. Because I received several books for Christmas, I didn’t get to start it until last Sunday morning. As I read the dustcover (you should always read the dustcover), I learned the volume I held
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Last Thursday night Ginger and I drove up the Hartford to meet our friend Christy and watch Baylor play UConn in basketball. The Huskies, perhaps the most famous women’s basketball program in the country, had won ninety-eight home games in a row. The Bears broke their streak, and didn’
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I had to learn how to get angry. My father grew up in a house where the weather of the family was one storm after another. He was determined my brother and I would not grow up in that kind of climate and so he and my mother made a
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The word magos can mean “a magus, sage of the magician religion, magician, astrologer, wise one;” but, probably because it was King James who authorized the version that has most affected our telling of Jesus’ birth, we have come to call them the Three Kings. They make one appearance in
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I preached this morning at North Haven Congregational Church. Here is what I had to say. ______________________________________ For a number of years now, I have marked the end of the year with a song by Counting Crows that begins a long december and there’s reason to believe maybe this year
recipes
This is a first. I have never made up a cocktail before. It grew out of a conversation with a friend--over the poetry of Padraig O’Tuama, as I remember, and she said to me, “Why don’t you make up a cocktail called ‘A Thin Place’?” I accepted the
recipes
A friend has been going through some tough times lately. They are from England, so I decided I would make English scones to offer support. English scones are lighter and fluffier than what we get in most American bake shops. They are good with butter and jam or marmalade; they
advent journal
I came home from our first Christmas Eve service struck by an irony that happens every year. We sing “Silent Night” and light candles, as many congregations do on this night, but then, in order to finish the service, we have to blow them out to sing “Joy to the