Category: Family
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Rain
My earliest memory of rain is an exquisite one. I’m 8 or 9 years old and I’m lying in my bed at night, well tucked in. My father is a minister and our house is a parsonage. Not a glamorous one. Quite the opposite. The house has two bedrooms for four people. 900 square feet. […]
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Ancestors
All around me are my ancestors.All around me,Wherever I go,Wherever I live.How can that be? How do they travel?How do they know? Evelyn is here,Barefoot, Embodying good words as she moves upon the church floor boardsAnd out onto the street to follow me, even here. Charles is here,With his bookish grumble,His camera-like gaze.Capturing moments and […]
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Overwhelmed with Bliss
On the homestretch of my 3-month sabbatical, I am in New Mexico. Right now, April 24, a Sunday, I am sitting in the Historic Plaza of Santa Fe and I am overwhelmed with bliss. Here’s what led up to it: A little while ago I had huevos rancheros at The Burrito Spot. They were, in […]
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Africa 10 Years Hence
I took my last sabbatical in 2012, while serving as the Lead Minister at The First Congregational United Church of Christ of Colorado Springs. I had applied for a Clergy Renewal grant through the Lilly Foundation and received it. An exciting day when a check for $40,000 arrived at the church office! The driving question […]
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Canasta
One day when she was visiting, my Aunt Jeanne taught me and my sister how to play canasta. We were in elementary school at the time, probably 4th and 6th grade. We sat around the dining room table at our house on Laurent Street. I’m pretty sure my parents had told us we needed to […]
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Percolating Coffee
Writing Prompt: “Tell me about your relationship with coffee.” Coffee has been there my entire life. I have a scar from when I was age 3 or 4 and I reached across the breakfast table to take something from my sister and I knocked the percolator pot onto my left forearm. My mom rushed in […]
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Stick Fort
I’m taking a writing course with Natalie Goldberg. Her method is to get you writing, to keep your hand moving across the page, to ignore the “Monkey Mind” that tells you that you have nothing to offer, and to heed the “Sweetheart” that tells you to just keep going. A big part of the course […]
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A Pleasing Aroma
Today would have been my grandmother’s 98th birthday. Her name was Marion Betty Kline Johnson. My mom’s mom. To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about her life but I have strong memories and impressions of her. She smoked. A lot. When I was in college, I visited her at her apartment in […]
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