Life on the Ledge
One of my best friends in the whole wide world read my last blog post. When I saw her she said something like this . . . Your words were lovely. You were really vulnerable in that piece. That’s what I remember her saying. And then I started getting anxious, again. I get anxious because […]
All Ands and No Buts
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die, A time to plant and a time to uproot, A time to kill and a time to heal, A time to tear down and a time to build, A time to […]
Sure as Mother’s Day
Some things in life are sure things. Like Mother’s Day. I don’t know when the day was set aside to honor our mothers but I know it has been around ever since my mother labored with me for hours on August 2, 1959. At 5:40 P.M. at Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren, Ohio all 9 pounds […]
Closing and Opening
Some openings are sweet. Like this morning as I rub my eyes and open them slow to a new dawn with sun just about to sprout over that wide expanse of water I can see from my bedroom window. It’s just before 5 A.M. I scoot over to that man of mine, the one I […]
Open
How to find true love and life in loss . . . We’ve all experienced it, you know. Loss. It’s a reality of our broken world. We lose jobs to the economy. We lose friends and family through misunderstandings and betrayals. We lose spouses through divorce. We lose health through illness or accident. We lose […]
Loser
Not for those in a hurry, but for those who crave real. After a week of observation—seeing human patterns and needs—this is for seekers and believers . . . I’m a loser. Aren’t we all? We’re all losers because we’ve all lost something, somewhere along the way. We know, in our deepest, darkest cracks. And […]
Up from the Ashes
I have Phoenix on my mind for two reasons. First, we’re going there. Fifteen days and counting. Second, I am one. I am a phoenix. In Egyptian mythology the phoenix was a bird that consumed itself with fire and, after 500 years, rose renewed from its ashes. I have not been literally consumed by fire […]
Period.
When loved ones leave fast at the hands of evil, there is still hope. Unspeakable grief. That’s what remains. I saw her face, the mother running to school, in bold black and white on the newspaper page. Her name, I don’t know—but my heart beats hard and is ripped open and bleeds anguished tears for her […]
Mission Accomplished
Wonder what you have in common with the homeless? Our bus pulls curbside and stops. I see the red painted door on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Nestled between posh brownstone buildings in one of the world’s wealthiest neighborhoods is the Bowery Mission for Women. It’s a rescue mission—rescuing the homeless and helpless—for Christ’s sake. Warm hands […]
Breaking Open
Tight closed I feel this morning not wanting any other to know my thoughts or feelings. But I will write. My heart breaks and I wonder why God does not heal. Why God, don’t you heal these three young brains damaged by alcohol before their tender lungs sucked their first breaths of earth air? Why […]