The robins returned to our crabapple tree last week. Though the snow lay deep, still they came, singing, announcing that spring has arrived although the snow still flutters down and all lies frozen and frosted white. The world waits now in a kind of winter, still and dormant under the grip of a virus. We … Continue reading Robins

I remember him, waiting here in the still whiteness of winter. I remember the first time he came to me, and the last. I remember the celebrations, and the long walks in silence. I remember, in the bread and the cup. In the songs and the worn pages, marked. In the breeze, in the warm … Continue reading Remembering

Intricate miracles are we, rods and cones arranged to perceive beauty, tiny hairs trembling in the spiraled cochlea arranged to hear music and birdsong and the voice of a friend. Each child, cells rapidly dividing, already programmed with the color of eyelashes and unique swirl of fingerprints, life forming in obscurity before we are even … Continue reading Wonder

A wolf ran by today. Out on the frozen lake, in the dim, gray light that precedes the dawn he trotted, solitary. What was his mission, leaving the wilderness toward civilization? Our house lies on the dividing line between neighborhoods and the places where wild things live. The stream that feeds our lake shelters ducks, … Continue reading Wilderness

Valentine's day - do you love it or hate it? It seems to me that this day, meant to celebrate love, often is a source of disappointment and discontent.  Some of us haven't reconciled the difference between romance and love. Some of us set a high bar for romantic gestures and when our expectations aren't … Continue reading Valentine’s Day

Once or twice a week we used to walk through our local park in the evenings. Through the gate we strolled, circling around over the stone bridge, down over water bug bridge and back through the meadow. First alone with each other, then a baby in the backpack, then two, then three, Ben lying limp … Continue reading Water Bug Bridge

As I've been praying over this new year, one passage of scripture keeps coming to mind:  For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed … Continue reading The Game

While our kids were young, I counted the passing years by taking pictures of them by our front door on the first day of school. Now that I live in Minnesota, I count the number of winters. This is our seventh winter here. Northern Minnesota winters are overwhelming. Last year we had snow for six … Continue reading Time