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As Christmastide comes to a close, I come offering a collection of thoughts and words that have found their way to me over the past couple of weeks, mostly through my reading. John begins his gospel saying, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." This year, his
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I’ve allowed myself to become stuck in the aftermath of both the campaign and the election. The volume of discourse has been overwhelming, even when those talking on the same side. Opinions about everything from sexism to safety pins feel as though most all of them are shouted. I
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aftermath I didn’t watch the debate last night on purpose. I went to bed and woke this morning to screens strewn with the debris of comments and video clips like empty beer cups and hot dog wrappers left after a WWF cage match. Orange is the new angry. No.
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When we lived in Boston, we would often drive back to Charlestown down the Cambridge side of the Charles River, which meant we passed the Museum of Science. We were sitting at the traffic signal one afternoon and read this billboard: Come visit the new planetarium at the Museum of
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⋅I have been working on a sermon for this coming Sunday. I get to preach at our church for the first time. My text is Matthew 5:21-43 that contains the story of Jesus’ healing of the woman who had hemorrhaged for twelve years, which is sandwiched between the account
lenten journal
My mode of travel for my commute to the computer store in New Haven depends on my vacillating schedule. If I go in early and come home early, I can take the train, which is a twenty minute ride along the shoreline of the Long Island Sound and then a
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Pick up any good book on writing and somewhere early in the description of the process the author will say you can’t write well if you are not reading good stuff. One article I read recently even quantified it: read a thousand pages for every one you write. I’
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Here are the words I spoke at my mother's funeral: My earliest recollections of her are in the kitchen. She loved to cook, and she loved to have people around her table. Both are things she passed on to me. So I thought the best way I could
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I have been in Texas for almost three weeks. My mother entered hospice care on January 2 and died on January 15. Here is her obituary. Barbara was born in Texas City, Texas on January 12, 1932 to Mabel and Valmond Schultz. She graduated from Texas City High School and
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December 27th. The day after the day after. For me, it carries some significance, however. On this day ten years ago I wrote my first blog post here at Don’t Eat Alone. I was four years into coming to terms with my depression, which was still kicking my butt
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As David Letterman was finishing up his years on late night television, one of his last guests was Tom Waits, who wrote a new song for Dave called “Take One Last Look.” I wept as I listened because Waits captured the mixture of feelings that flow as we move from
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Packing up a house is an archaeological expedition through the layers of a life in one place, not only because of the collections of things that have to be sorted and assigned a destination, but also because of the stories that get unearthed. One that came to the surface is