Category Reflecting

Lost words

Growing up on the western border of Southern Appalachia in the 70s and 80s was the end of an era. The people who largely raised and cared for me were adults during the Depression, who had values their children would…

The Church

The church building was small – no more than 1000 square feet all told. My granddaddy’s name is on the cornerstone, along with the date – 1941 – when they built the brick building after the wooden structure that had…

I’m tired.

I’m whipped. My job at the church has me running hard both last week and this week, and there is lots of detail work involved, and much extroversion involved, and while I love so much about my work there, neither…

Prayers

I don’t understand prayer. I mean, not really. I don’t know how it works, or if it works, and I have noticed that when I pray for something to change, the thing that changes the most is usually me. Maybe…

The Plan

Some years back, I was hanging out in the smoking rea of the day shelter I ran at the time. It was one of my favorite community-building activities – it’s hard to have any agenda in a smoking area, especially…

Hot dog sandwiches

A while back, I was interviewed for the Food and Faith Podcast, and we talked about food and how it figures into our memories. And I had a throwaway line in there where I was talking about the power of…

The Dreambook

In North Mississippi, in the late 1970s, the value of the Sears Catalog cannot be overstated. It was an endless source of amazement and entertainment. It was my portal into other worlds, where people wore suits and had couches that…

The Bad News

It was perhaps six years ago that I found myself at the hospital. It was, to be fair, a nice hospital, as hospitals go. I didn’t have clergy credentials at this one – my people almost always ended up at…