They showed a map on TV the other night that over her lifetime, U.S. swimmer Katie Ledecky has nearly swum the circumference of the earth. She may as well have swum to Paris for the Olympics, I thought. But I wondered if all her training had felt that way---if, with each stroke, she felt herself … Continue reading Two Good Legs
On Dangerous Hospitality One of the first chapter books I owned was a little paperback my dad bought for me, called The Watchmaker’s Daughter. It must have been a child’s adaptation of Corrie ten Boom’s story in The Hiding Place, which I wouldn’t read until I was old enough to brave it. I loved Corrie. … Continue reading Hiding Place
The Story Behind True Stories from Home For every writer, there’s a day of small beginnings. Jane Austen started with a quill and inkwell in her family’s sitting room. Hemingway carried a notebook and pencil around in his pocket. For Tolkien, it was the back of a student’s Oxford exam paper where he drafted the … Continue reading Over the Pond Banks & Through the Woods
May came—the green, bright end to the school year—and we’d shut our math books before noon, eat on the porch, then run to the swings or grab bats from the garage. The apple tree would blossom, the mowers would hum, and it would have been a shame to sit at our desks and miss it. … Continue reading By Wisdom is a Schoolhouse Built
A True Story from Home April is young, and I’m in my garden as often as I can be. Today, I have company. My nephew, Bennett, is kneeling in the zucchini patch beside a Red Ryder wheelbarrow. He asked if he could help, so he’s weeding the clover that crept up in early March, tossing … Continue reading A Garden in Babylon
A True Story from Home Last February was gray and long, as the lean months before spring tend to be when winter feels old. But in my mailbox on Edgewood Road, there was something new: letters from Jared about what he hoped to plant in his garden that spring. He wrote of marigolds and tomatoes. … Continue reading When You Come Marchin’ Home
A True Story from Home To me, Mrs. Olave Thurston was the lady in my grandpa’s stories---as if she was another Ma Ingalls or Miss Rumphius. When we ate chicken for dinner, Papa would tell how Mrs. Thurston raised, butchered, and boiled her own. When spring came and I cut fresh flowers for the table, … Continue reading Gravestone Flowers
The kingdom of heaven is as near as the hand at the end of your arm. So turn the dough, stitch the wound, change the sheets, play the notes, stack the wood, sow the seeds and straighten the rocks along the wilderness road.
Mavon’s dad knew he was dying. He didn’t want to leave them here on the farm—Mavon, her brother, and mother, but he was ready to be with Jesus, and he reminded them from his deathbed: “We’ll just be separated for a short time, and soon, we’ll be together again.” There was something else— “He told … Continue reading A Light in the Valley
For Papa Jay on his 88th Birthday, Labor Day 2023 You told me “Eight thirty or so,” but of course, you meant eight, And I knew you’d been up a long time before then Because I ran by at dawn And saw the old hurricane lamp was on in the kitchen And the storm doors … Continue reading Eight Thirty or So
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