Field Notes
I am a low church sort of soul. I mean this to say that while I plan, I tend to leave space for something to happen. I welcome the unexpected and hope for the holy to break through when She wants to. I don’t want a faith contained in
Stories
It weren’t nothing but an egg. A deviled one at that. The line was long in the church fellowship hall. I was one of three pastors scrambling around. The Baptists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians decided to get together to eat. Our congregations share a neighborhood, and we’ve been told
Stories
My sister has always seen things I couldn't. Growing up, I'd catch her staring off into nothing. She'd pause at the bottom of staircases and briefly hold someone's gaze on a landing I thought was empty. Like many children, she had make-
Stories
Yesterday, I took pie to someone. It took me a couple of tries to get my crust right. I go through phases of making pie. I need a little trial and error before I feel comfortable sending them out the door. The pie I made was a Derby pie. I
Stories
I’m standing in a field watching two bare-assed children play in a mud hole. One of them is mine.The other belongs to friends I haven’t seen in years. We didn’t plan for this impromptu swim session. We packed sunscreen but not swimsuits. We left a
Stories
“Got anything planned for the summer?” an acquaintance asks. He knows me less as the local village pastor and more as the guy who erects a giant Home Depot skeleton in his front yard every year. We’ve run into each other at Dunkin Donuts, a New England staple that
Stories
“If you move me back to the South, I want chickens.” The words came like spitfire from my wife’s mouth. She held my gaze like a gunslinger. “Of course,” I said. She’d had chickens on her mind since Vermont. That was five years ago, when I’d uprooted
Author, Essayist, Storyteller
The farmhouse floor is cold as icicles. My feet frantically search for the house shoes I know are somewhere near the foot of the bed. Since I woke, I’ve been careful not to disturb the two forms inches away from me, buried under warm flannel sheets and heavy quilts.
For a long time, I squeezed my writing into the leftover spaces in my life. Typically, that meant before or after everything else. Lots of early mornings. Even more late nights. No matter what, I always found a way. Sometimes I wrote because somebody asked me to. Sometimes I wrote