“Bonhoeffer did not expect immediate results. He died probably assuming his life had been a failure. We don’t see it like that. The distinction between being faithful and being effective isn’t an absolute one’ they’re actually the same thing in different time scales.” https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2015-07/what-bonhoeffer-knew I booked thirty minutes with a friend the other day and […]
Massage fascinates me. Sure, the benefits stare one in the face. Back when I swam 3 times a week at 3000+ yards a pop, every-other-week massages were as central to my 30+-year-old physical well-being as eating plenty of protein. If someone else didn’t work the kinks out, my body would coil in on itself like […]
Even before my 49th birthday, I thought about “‘aging in place:” how and whether transportation options, community, home structure, etc. support our getting frailer while staying in this same place. Ever since my grandson was born, people ask me whether we’ll be moving closer to where he lives. Or if they don’t know of Baby […]
The mole is the unit of amount in chemistry. … A mole of a substance is defined as: The mass of substance containing the same number of fundamental units as there are atoms in exactly 12.000 g of 12C. Fundamental units may be atoms, molecules, or formula units, depending on the substance concerned. The Mole—Chemistry […]
…but doing is more explainable. When I woke 2/3 of the way this morning, my Austin Seminary T-shirt was front of mind. I picked it up from the Admissions office at the end of spring term, faithfully promising to wear it far from Austin. When I promise, I commit, and I have worn the […]
My wife’s new pink slippers have gay pom-poms. There is not a spot or a stain on their satin toes or their sides. All night they lie together under her bed’s edge. Shivering I catch sight of them and smile, in the morning. Later I watch them descending the stair, hurrying through the doors and […]
Self-nurturing is a caramelized topping over a trust brulée: you’ve got to have the trust, or you are left with just burnt sugar: sweet but brittle and not very satisfying. —Jennifer Louden, Week 40 of The Life Organizer I’m feeling on the spun-sugar side at the moment. Or maybe I’m feeling like flan (brulée)…all eggy […]
Good-night, my love, for I have dreamed of thee In waking dreams, until my soul is lost— Is lost in passion’s wide and shoreless sea, Where, like a ship, unruddered, it is tost Hither and thither at the wild waves’ will. There is no potent Master’s voice to still This newer, more tempestuous Galilee! The […]
(For Robert Lowell) This is the time of year when almost every night the frail, illegal fire balloons appear. Climbing the mountain height, rising toward a saint still honored in these parts, the paper chambers flush and fill with light that comes and goes, like hearts. Once up against the sky it’s hard to tell […]
There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in […]
