Shall we examine our illnesses, and give them truer, more meaningful names, such as The North Wind, The Reminder, and The Teacher? Then we might say, I am visited by The North Wind, or, I am thankful for The Reminder. We might say, I learned great things from The Teacher. I have The Mystery. I do not fear The End. . [ 1329 ]
Shown by a leaf — service is not a doctrine, but the heart of the tree. November 23, 2021 . [ 1299 ]
Blue elderberry — one fairly dense shrub about ten feet tall alongside the path above Goose Lake; another twice as high, several hundred feet farther on where the path and dry stream bed turn; a third, the smallest, but with a crop every bit as ample as the others, not far north. Mission Lake, below the old black cottonwood, green with algae, very shallow, dotted with softly illuminated shore birds, […]
How many of us realize we are teachers by our actions? How many of us know we are learners by grace? How many of us rejoice in the infinite and give thanks? June 15, 2021 Canvas 926 June 13, 2017 . [ 1136 ]
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man — I wonder how many years have passed since I read this story aloud to my wife in the kitchen of the house we were renting at the time. Twenty? Twenty-five? The reading ended in tears — mine. And even then, it was not the first time I had read the story. Had Dostoevsky written nothing else, his mission on earth would have been […]
It’s one thing to order the destruction of an historic rose garden; more tragic, though, is that there’s always someone willing to follow such orders, when the intelligent, logical thing to do is refuse: No — if you want to destroy something everyone holds in trust, do it yourself, with your own hands, for all the world to see. And if you’re worried about blisters, you might try a moral […]
If the individual plants in our patch of grass were people or trees, how much space would they need to survive and thrive? They are a multitude. However, I walk through or in a forest or a crowd, and I walk on a lawn; I am small in one instance, large in another; a humble supplicant; the possessor of great strength and power. And always, I have a choice of […]
Opinion, some say, is a right we hold — as long as we agree — but I prefer to understand and learn, to whatever possible degree my limits deign to show — and to pray the child in me may have the room to play and grow — and never stop, and stand, and say, I know. [ 661 ]
I love moss — its color, its texture, its immediate response to fog or the slightest hint of rain, and how it thrives on thoughtful compression and familiar touch, growing thick beneath footsteps on sidewalks, in lawns, and on forest paths. In some ways it is almost human. Or maybe we are almost moss. This time of year, the retaining walls, the stone steps, and the wooden borders of the […]
Truly an exercise in vanity, I liked this self-portrait so much back in 2014, I had a small canvas-print made. On a wall in this room, in a dimly lit place mostly hidden by books, it’s a private daily reminder of my foolish self-absorption, which I can only hope, and am in no way certain, I’ve outgrown. But for all that, the likeness is still a valid record of sorts, […]
William Michaelian 