It is gray and raining today, with perhaps a visitation of wet snow later in the morning. Weather extremes herald the approach of spring. The tilt of the earth provides incremental warming to us in the northern hemisphere–the slide begins to the awaited growing season. Natures rhythm is beneficent, a solace that we depend…
For human life to continue on the hillside (or anywhere else) through successive generations requires good use, good work, all along. For in any agricultural place that will waste and erode–and all will–bad work will not permit “muddling through”; sooner or later it ends human life. For good work to last, to outlast the…
It is raining today. It is also “raining” in Parkland Florida where the funerals continue for the 17 killed in the latest school shooting. No one can grieve for anyone else. Grief is solitary work. No one can imagine the sorrow of a parent who feels the loneliness of having a child murdered. So…
Persons are joined to families families to communities, etc., by disciplines that must be deliberately made, remembered, taught, learned, and practiced. –excerpt Standing by Words by Wendell Berry
Yeah, I know the title is out of character. Those who know me recognize that I do not routinely use such language. I would bet you a large sum of money that the family members of the 17 murdered at Florida’s Douglas High School are thinking and speaking in these terms. Their grief is…
Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough, to choose what to pay attention to, and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. –excerpt, This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion about Living…
Today is Fat Tuesday, tomorrow is Lent, a season of abstinence. I was not raised Catholic, but I understand the logic of deprivation as preparation for newness, the emergence of new life. The truth is ancient, predating the Christian era. That’s the dynamic of life, of reality, of Nature, and the arc of human…
The narrower a man’s intellectual grasp, the more power he is able to grab in his country. I tell you, Lieutenant, there is only one way to survive here. And that is not to imagine anything. A Russian who uses his imagination is done for. I certainly never use mine. My job is to…
The snow lies deep, parking lots remain unplowed. The world has not ended in ice. Not yet. Not today. I am comforted by my customary warm cup of coffee with the green goddess Starbucks logo. Many worship at the altar of the green goddess. There are far worse religious obsessions. With this one, what…
Can I be honest with you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? I mean really, really, honest? Sometimes I get sooo scared! I’ll wake up in the middle of the night all alone, hundreds of miles away from anybody, and it’s pitch dark, and I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen to me in the…
