A lawnmower buzzed somewhere in the neighborhood. This was a sure sign that Spring had firmly arrived and everyone knows that no one should stay inside on a day such as this. At least she remembered hearing her parents say that once. From her window, she had often watched the two little girls playing in their backyard. It was a nice backyard, or at least it appeared to be from a distance. Today she decided to accept the invitation of the one named Leigh to play on the Wonder

For Lynne They always want to know why poets write about death. It is so melancholy--so incomplete for a bright spring morning full of promise and hope. Those of us who are not sixteen know about the circle. The mystery bites, intrigues, especially as we grow closer to leaving. To pierce the pasteboard mask, to see behind the veil, to know if we will see again with eyes not human--their faces are fresh and unlined-some hide secrets-some still cling to childhood

The Bustle in a House The Morning after Death Is solemnest of industries Enacted opon Earth – The Sweeping up the Heart And putting Love away We shall not want to use again Until Eternity – Emily Dickinson (Poetry Foundation) His father sat near the coffin, nearer than anyone else stood; his father did not look at its contents, only stealing sidelong glances now and then between bits of absent conversation. Later when

Photograph-Corel Painter

He was a thoughtful and funny teenager who enjoyed misbehavior. We had a rousing discussion one day about right and wrong. He contended that he had the freedom, even responsibility, to bring BALANCE to the do-gooders of society. "Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I want you people to do what’s right. I just want my right to push the boundaries of what’s acceptable.” A few weeks later, he was arrested for selling drugs in the school parking lot.
 I do not know the rest of hi

Fiona loved the Forest. She treasured the smell of the tall stately pines and the black rich earth beneath her feet. She delighted in the sound of the wind breathing high in the tops of the trees and the skitter-skatter of animals as they caroused and labored in their forest homes. Fiona's small fingers sought the roughness of tree bark and the velvet of the verdant moss. Sometimes she constructed a bed of leaves, pretending that she too lived like one of the primitive de

“Mary Poppins….took something shiny from her basket and fixed it to the glue. When she took her hand away they saw that she was sticking the Gingerbread Stars to the sky. As each one was placed in position, it began to twinkle furiously, sending out rays of sparkling golden light. “They’re ours!” said Michael breathlessly. “They’re our stars!”” ~P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins ************* Eight years after graduation, a young man

Reflecting on childhood-or any distant memory- is like walking down the dusty halls of a great mansion, surrounded by paintings of varying beauty, both dark and bright. The spiritual war that rages around us cannot be underestimated, not unlike walking those hallways.
 False or altered images, replications of the human face, voice, even bodies, can be lies. 
 Is it real?
 Evangelist and civil rights advocate Billy Graham can speak sermons he never uttered (or even thoug

Driving in the San Bernardino Mountains differs from driving in the city and certainly from driving a long country road. Driving up the mountain, the roads twist and turn and the wind whips around the vehicle. Unfamiliar drivers are urged to stop at turnouts if they slow traffic or their engines overheat. If you ride your brakes down the mountain, your vehicle’s brakes may overheat. You can smell this from other vehicles as you pass them, some stopped at turnouts, broken,

John R. Bergman God in the Garden On this earth, I have no father. I keep the shirt he wore when he entered hospice. For a long while, if I held the shirt close I imagined I could feel the warmth of his hug and smell his morning aftershave. Now-I can hear his voice because I videotaped his talks with my students about Omaha Beach, about St. Lo and the Ardennes Forest. We wanted the young to know why and how they fought then. (I cannot quite shake loose in my mind

I had always owned cats until one day, years after the last cat’s demise, I decided I needed a dog. Understanding cats is easy: basically they believe they are better than humans. But when your cat decides to anoint you with his love, he might perch behind your head on your chair and lay his loyal little head on your neck as you read, passing his power of love and comfort to you. Or he might not. Dogs are different, especially little dogs. Dogs dance excitedly just becaus

As I leave the house early some mornings, my little dog (as the one before her) rushes around me, protesting furiously, anxious not only because I am leaving but also because she does not know how long I will be gone. Outside, I turn to look at her: she quiets, her mournful eyes holding mine as we look at each other in the darkness through the glass door. For that moment, I wish we could simply be together, enjoying the comfort of being surrounded by love, unconcerned by ap

In memoriam in days of grief Even in the ugliest of times, the human heart longs for beauty and meaning. Viktor Frankl spent three years in a Nazi concentration camp; "Man’s Search for Meaning is Frankl's surprisingly temperate story of the barbaric circumstances of camp inmates. Reduced to simple survival, Frankl writes that many prisoners clung to a persistent—even increased—awareness of beauty. They owned nothing, but purposely put aside the torment of their circumstan

In Memoriam in Days of Grief There is much to love about this life. In winter, little flowers called Snowdrops push their way through the snow to the surface, a reminder that the winter will not last forever. *********** A tree fell on an old farmhouse on my street, a house reminiscent of earlier times in my town. The branches of the tree broke through the porch and the roof of the house; the grandmother who lived there had died long ago and the house had sat empt

It’s not that I have so much stuff. It’s how I got it that creates the difficulty. Ancient furniture from my father-letters with ink so faded to be barely readable and the books. Ah, the books. Many of them were my father’s, the most intelligent person I’ve ever known, whose hands turned the pages, smoothed wrinkles and sometimes wrote notes in the margins. Early on, the books grabbed hold of my heart and mind and imprinted themselves to change the way I understood the wo

It was late Spring when, like birds that fluttered at indeterminate moments, weaving and dipping through consciousness, the words left me. They had for years formed spirals and images in my brain, but they left more suddenly than they had appeared. Not only that, but the sweet melancholy in which I had rested for my life disappeared, as if it never were. And I began to understand what it was like to live without beauty. I had been aware of such an existence others led, but

They were rescued out of Egypt from slavery.
 Their people—thought to be be around 2 million—were allowed to leave a hostile country, accompanied by an extraordinary cloud by day and raging pillar of fire at night.
 They witnessed God’s power repeatedly.
 They reached a vast sea which parted for their passage; when their leader’s hand was lowered, their pursuers were engulfed by rushing waters.
 Six weeks after their exit from Egypt, they stopped in the desert and the

We are body, soul and spirit. Within the body resides the soul; within the soul is the spirit. Through spirit we communicate with that which we cannot see; through that unseen communication our eternal place in the universe is shaped.
 The spirit is the most intimate part of the human. Free will and choice shape the spirit; on one hand, self centeredness, selfishness, greed or conversely time with God’s Word.
 ***************
 My father nurtured his spirit by dinin

In ancient times, types of fabrics were limited. In the Scriptures, only garments made of flax linen were to be worn in the Temple area; this fine linen represents purity and holiness. Even wool, another cloth then available, was not to be worn within the temple area . Several OT passages require that linen and wool not be woven together, perhaps because one is plant based and one animal based. In Scripture, angelic figures are always clothed in fine linen. Likewise in the

It is foolish to be sad to lift three frozen goldfish from a pond. Everyone can agree on that. Right? When I was tall and they were not, we all went to the pond shop to carefully choose each of their fishes. One year she wanted white; another year she wanted orange, while the boys had to have the opposite, whatever that was. Then only two came to visit but we still bought three. Later it was only one; she was young enough to pick out hers and, of course, the othe