Letting Go
Death is not a tidy process. I've answered too many 3 am pages from the hospital to know that death does not honor anyone's schedule. Death can arrive under the stark glare of fluorescent lighting and the faint whiff of…
Showing Up: on Four Legs or Two
Some dogs come to us; others we seek out. Pansy arrived in a pick-up truck. She had been abandoned by the side of the road near our family farm. My father-in-law picked her up and brought her home. Pansy was…
Standing on the Shoulders of Saints
I picked apples last weekend. You wouldn’t think one apple tree could possibly be so prolific, but my kitchen tells another story. I’ve made applesauce, apple pies, fruit leather, and apple crumble. We’ve eaten apples with caramel, and apples with…
Praying Our Goodbyes
Years ago, when I worked at Abbott as a chaplain, I was paged into the hospital in the middle of an icy night. Abbott didn’t generally page in chaplains unless a patient was close to death, and this patient had…
Plan B: Gratitude from the Ashes
Tom’s Burned Down Café is a “no shirt, no shoes, no problem” kind of place. The bar is a ramshackle assortment of tarps and tents with cheap beer in a funky/grunge environment and signs that read “We cheat the other…
