The fields contained cow patties every few feet; those deposits of cow manure, arranged in neat circles larger than my foot, the pattern a gentle swirl.

if sorrow is how we learn to love we begin with a deficit emptied before we are filled a cold hand never warmed an old heart never young if sorrow is how we learn to love what should we believe let’s believe in faith courage to leave the shore filling our sails with warm sunshined air if sorrow is how we learn to love let’s choose to see love as a start not an end as a balloon lighter than air as an anchor without weight if sorrow is how we learn to love let’s u

I didn’t have a say in it, when my dad went into the ministry. It’s 1979 when I am swept along        with boxes          and shoes            and books to Junction City, Kentucky,      from Mississippi’s Pine Belt. Still south to you      up north to me. People talk faster      using different words,        noticing my words are slow          and quaint. Perpetually unlocked, the sanctuary      becomes mine during the week.  Quiet towers over my short stature,      as I pass

18 Mar 2016 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The words came out of his mouth so normal, so smooth. Calm & quiet. Cancer. Suddenly the world changed. Not dramatic like an earthquake that kills hundreds of thousands of people, or a tsunami washing over the land with a force incomprehensible, or a loved one dying or leaving for good. Just change, calm & quiet like his voice and words. No press release or formal ceremony nor a panicked firestorm of emotions and grief. Calm, quiet shift in rea

8 April 2023 The one day a year we imagine not having Jesus. He is gone. Dead - as far as his original followers knew. We haven't yet heard the hopeful version of "he isn't here." Right now, on this dark Saturday, we only know he isn't  here . How alone they must have felt. How alone we feel when we've lost someone dear to the inevitability of death. The finality of it; the void left by a living, breathing entity no longer occupying its place in space and time.  Our  space an