Along the dusty road to Sandeman stands a mud house. Built of the very earth it sits upon and much like all the neighboring houses except for the tree. A venerable old mango graces the main rooms and the courtyard with delicious shade. Some long ago ancestor planted a seed or a tender sapling in […]

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/03/advice-on-writing/ I’m currently gobbling up three books on Writing. Highlighters are strewn on the coffee table and kitchen counters. A while ago I gave you a link to rookiemag.com and an article titled Getting Unstuck. Here’s another article, chock full of the collected wisdom of great writers, from the fabulous Brain Pickings. If you want […]

How do you know if you’ve lived, loved, and mattered? Can you cobble together a definition of what living means to you? It has to be more than a heartbeat and brain activity. That’s being alive, but the bar is set too low if that’s a definition of living. The question gets easier to answer […]

My childhood was the last great childhood in America. Everyone says so. It’s not about me, it’s about timing and geography. The time was the 1960’s and the place was a small town in northern California. Kids had freedom back then and there. We roamed free like wildebeest, from fields where we road bikes, to […]

Photo by Claudio Matsuoka via flickr I thought maybe a few of you might have had ‘a week’ and you could use an AAUGH moment 😀 These are the ‘reigning cats and dogs’ who probably don’t know or care that their videos went viral. They’re just doing what they do as part of a family. […]

Today we’ll attend a Memorial service for a good friend. Jack was a gentle man, a kind person, and a humble one as well. He was open, honest, generous, and hospitable. He’ll be missed by family and friends, his community and church will feel his loss. Funerals are designed to make us think about the […]

I have a sort of informal, unofficial friendship with Janet. She’s a checker at the market where I grocery shop. We’ve never gone for coffee or a movie, but I know about her family and hobbies from 20 years of swapping small talk. My mom shops at the same market, and so did my dad […]

  There is a powerhouse passage on prayer. You’ll find it tucked neatly in amongst a bunch of verses about church discipline and forgiving another christian. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where […]

I’ve been thinking for several weeks about what to get my mom for Mother’s Day. She has everything she needs, but the point of the gift is to say something about how much she’s meant in my life. She looked for new perfume the last time we went to the Mall, so I was thinking […]