[ I gave this reflection as part of a Martin Luther King service.] Good Morning! A photograph, a certain kind of very rare photograph, can come to stand for a period of history. It can somehow capture a moment larger than the scene depicted in the frame itself, and most relevant to my comments this […]
Christmas Thunder and a Type One Diagnosis
It has not been normal December weather. Last night, coming out of church, Eleanor and I spotted the full moon, and as we looked up waiting for my wife Katie to join us, it felt like a comfortable September evening. For a brief moment it WAS a September evening. This feeling, only a flash, was fleeting […]
The Tenebrism of the Soul Sifted to the Surface in Four Ballads
[In the fall of 2013 I led two parts of a five Sunday Sunday School sequence at All Saints Episcopal Church in Atlanta. The theme of the talks was “Twilight: Our Complicated Relationship with Darkness.” The talks were a precursor to a visit from Barbara Brown Taylor who was about to have her book, Learning to Walk in the Dark hit the […]
A Brave Question: “Am I Worth Dying For?”
Dear Lord Lest I continue My complacent way Help me to remember Somehow out there A man died for me today. As long as there be war Then I must Ask and answer Am I worth dying for? –Prayer Eleanor Roosevelt kept in her wallet during WWII My daughter dressed up as Eleanor Roosevelt at […]
How Summer Camp Should Inform School
Over the next couple of months, they will open up the musty storage sheds where they stacked the mattresses in mid-August. They will pull the canoes out to count and inspect even though the weather is not yet warm enough to spend much time on the lake before mid-morning. They will walk the docks with […]
21 July 2005: Cambridge, King’s Cross, The British Library, Tavistock Square, The British Museum, and the Long Cab Ride
Our plan for the day was already logistically challenging…catch an early train from Cambridge to King’s Cross, London, drop our bags into secure storage there, head to The British Library to see the rare documents room, walk to The British Museum by way of Tavistock Square, return to King’s Cross by the same route, pick […]