Dear Maggie, Thank you for your last letter. I read it on my walk back from the mailbox and my heart broke with yours. I am so sorry to hear about your friend, Lydia. It’s a sad, strange thing when an individual who made the good confession of faith and walked with other believers in … Continue reading When a Friend Walks Away
My older sister and I grew up six years apart and about as similar as Meg and Jo March. She wore sweaters and scarves; I wore the same Mossy Oak hat several days in a row so I didn’t have to brush my hair. She kept her side of the closet neat; I didn’t know … Continue reading Meg & Jo
Not many people know about Mill Creek Mountain (at least, we didn't think they did, but I’ll get to that). I wouldn’t know it myself were it not for Don and Bo Sosebee, for Vesta Baptist Church in the valley below it, and for Jared, who took me there. Jared and I took a drive … Continue reading On Behalf of Mill Creek Mountain
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
We read Miss Twiggley’s Tree so many times that both covers tore off, including the final page of the book, which offered the moral of the story. But the last page I had was enough. It pictured the inside of Miss Twiggley’s house, tucked deep in the boughs of a willow tree, where the entire … Continue reading A Set Table in a Safe Tree
Sitting across the coffee shop table from her, I cannot see the Spirit of God in her---just as I cannot see the wind that’s whipping up off the cold Missouri river this morning. I do not know where these January gales come from, or where they’ll lie down tonight. They’re sharp, cutting right through my … Continue reading Where the North Wind Blows
Here is something I didn't expect when I began coaching writers--- I never thought I'd travel so far. It's a cliche to say that reading lets you travel the world, but when you rally a group of writers around a table, you're really in for an expedition. Writers write stories, and stories need people inside … Continue reading Circumnavigators
There were many things I did not know about Helen McCallie, but none of them surprise me. For one, I didn’t know she had hiked across Central Africa as a single woman in the sixties. I didn’t know she played classical piano, or that she attended the opera--- though I remember how her laugh sounded … Continue reading Goodbye, Helen
For Mike & Ashley: May this long table be filled with friends, Maybe not all pirates, but both the righteous and the rogue. May they eat and party and be merry. May this dining room ring with the laughter of a feast to come. May this kitchen smell like coffee and bacon, Or Fruity Pebbles … Continue reading A Blessing for Home
I met Darlene at the café on the first floor of the doctor’s building. And before I met her, I heard her ordering at the counter. The cashier had asked how she was doing, and she had answered with: Not wonderful. She had an elbow propped on the counter and her gray head in her … Continue reading Coffee and a Breakfast Wrap
