Dear Friends, Frost’s poem Birches touches some delicate places. After painting the white birch trees, ‘bending left and right across the lines of straighter darker trees,’ he swings down to earth in this delightful dnouement:

Dear Friends, When you turn a certain age in our society you are considered a senior citizen. Since we are a youth-worshiping culture, the appellation senior citizen is euphemistic.

Dear Friends, Sarah Hughes came from behind to take the gold. Now she stands in that special circle of Olympians who remind us of something we too easily forget in the daily avalanche of violence that assults the spirit.

Dear Friends, I expected the book I have in my head to pour onto the pages. It’s there, certainly, waiting to be tapped onto the keys from my mind, through flying fingers, onto the blank screen. Then all I need to do is hit the print button, and voila!

Dear Friends, It was good to be back in the saddle on Sunday. I’ll put the sermon on the website- I wish I could put the feeling in our sanctuary on the website, but there are some things that simply have to be experienced first hand.

Dear Friends, My first sabbatical project was a paper for the Greenfield Group on The Uses of Poetry in Parish Ministry. It’s done. I’ll present it to the group on April 30. You’ll hear portions of it.

Dear Friends, I got a Hallmark Christmas card from my old college buddy Paul, wishing me the usual happy holiday, and hoping the true meaning of Christmas would be mine. The funny bone gets tickled in little unexpected ways. I laughed out loud and Lory asked what was so funny. I tried to explain why […]

Dear Friends, We call the collection Natural Selections. They’re my favorite poems. They survived years of reading, searching, hoping, and culling. They fit. Survival of the fittest.

Dear Friends, Last spring I worked out a plan with the Board of Trustees to have a three-month sabbatical this winter. It’s been ten years since my first sabbatical, so the timing was right.

Dear Friends, On October 23 I served as moderator at an Interfaith Council presentation on Islam. The speaker was a lay Muslim leader. Our attendance was more than double what we get at most of our Interfaith forums. Everyone wants to learn about Islam, and to know what Muslims are thinking.