lenten journal
my job tonight was to mix the ashes and the oil making from the charred remains a paste of penitence the sacred soot stared from the bottom of the plate as I poured olive oil from home and began to stir the ashes stuck to me like skin like they
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For Valentine's Day, Ginger gave me a waffle iron. Actually, she gave me a replacement waffle iron. She gave me one several years ago that I wore out making waffles when I worked at the restaurant at Duke and I wanted to put chicken and waffles on the
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On my last trip to Texas, I was passing through Fort Worth and called an old friend to meet me for lunch. When he asked what I wanted to eat, I said, “Chicken fried steak,” since, for all of its wonderful food, that is not a part of the Carolina
poetry
who knows how many pictures of you I’ve taken how many times we’ve walked down our street — in sun and snow — on our way to coffee and conversation yet you still steal my heart in the simplest of ways the singlest of frames the hope and ache of
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One of the things I have had to unlearn from my childhood is how people were described when telling a story of something that happened. What was modeled for me was white people were simply described as people: a man, a woman. People of any other ethnic or racial background
poetry
I have work to do this morning but I keep running into poems that give me pause and pull my gaze out my second-story window to the dance of sunshine and shadows on the fence line, the blanket of dead leaves turning to soil and the trees, their bare branches
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The Christmas tide is going out . . . the waves of wonder which crashed against the sea wall of my heart are sliding away reminding me that the tides come and go, neap and spring: this is the rhythm of redemption. Along the now silent sands in my mind’s eye I
poetry
I wrote this poem several years ago, and I thought of it this morning. the morning after Mary rose before sunrise; the baby was still sleeping, as was Joseph and most of the animals, except for one cow who looked a little sheepish. The shepherds were long gone. In their
advent journal
Thanks for making the journey with me this Advent season. The night is far spent; the day is at hand. I am grateful for all the love that surrounds me. I let James Taylor sing us to sleep. Peace Milton
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My offering tonight is a story I wrote several years ago. Three Christmases ago, my friend Terry helped me turn it into an audio file. This past year has helped me read it a bit differently. I share it again. A Faraway Christmas As we gather together on this Silent
advent journal
The first time you came to Boston it was so cold; the wind bit us at the bus stop. You pulled me close and asked, “Am I still wearing pants?” then you laughed. When you first came to Durham — our first Christmas in our new home — we were snowed in.
advent journal
when we lived by the ocean I learned to tell time by the tides (I guess I should say I couldn’t tell time a thing — or keep it) there was no second hand . . . no sense of calendar — just the giving and taking away of the beach twice a day: