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Annie, my neighbor one block over, bends down to the curved rut running the length of the alley and scrapes a penny out of the sand. She brushes its scratched surface against her blue-jeans, then presses it into my palm. “You’re the lucky one today,” she says. I slip the rough penny into my pants’

I regularly dream about the church where I grew up:  A soaring Protestant-plain structure built in the early 1800’s with a handful of parishioners clustered in the first few pews.  I doubt more than twenty people have attended a Sunday service in the last three decades.  The congregation was vibrant when I was eight but

In the days after a fire destroyed a six-bay garage at the ARC Retreat Center as well as three cars, two years’ supply of firewood, and all my belongings, I was numb; I wandered around wearing other people’s clothes trying to remember who I was and what I believed.  Had God abandoned me?  The ring

My friend Michael Bischoff gave a talk recently in which he publicly declared his participation in the “cult of personal development.”  Like so many of us, Michael strives to be a better person, a better leader, and to help make the world a better place.  What could be wrong with that? Of course, a lot

Three weeks ago, our neighbor brought Gwyn a tiny monarch caterpillar crawling on a milkweed leaf.  We made a home for the little guy with an ice cream bucket and mosquito net, and watched in amazement as the leaf got gnawed and caterpillar poop appeared.  In no time flat our very hungry caterpillar was huge

So I’m happily reading the Land Stewardship Project newsletter when I come across this passage, about a tribally supported agricultural organization: Growing food in the community and getting people to consume it are different things.  That’s why Wozupi provides classes for the public throughout the year on not only food production, but preparation and preserving. 

Something’s got to change.  I mean in my life and how I respond to the environmental crisis.  Because global warming threatens our political stability, our food system, and our health; it’s already eliminating the water source for thousands and will soon displace whole populations, particularly in poor countries.  Things are bad.  Out of love for

Gwyn’s sick, which means two nights of interrupted sleep.  This morning she arrives in our dark bedroom wanting to play.  I don’t.  She curls up at my feet, right where the cat sleeps, and lays still for five minutes. Snow has dusted the earth.  It falls all morning in trace amounts, miniscule white thoughts moving