"Today on the hill road toward Belchertown I came across an old farmhouse in an old field with stone walls all about it and a great elm above it, and lilacs at the doorway. I stopped for a long time to look at it. In some other time... I shall choose just such a small … Continue reading Little Kids, Cows, & Keeping Bees
Before the sun slipped down on the Sabbath, Mary might have pressed aloe leaves and squeezed their gum into a dish, mixing it with myrrh and water. Carrying it to a buried Jesus at dawn must have felt like a last, little fragrant offering. But when she saw the sunrise streaming into an open tomb, … Continue reading Leaves of Healing
“I was putting off knowing it. All that day there had been a crashing in the wind, the sound of a chainsaw and that of a much heavier engine.” - Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow I watched one afternoon in October to see my neighbor’s chainsaw whir and whine and whistle clean through the trunk of … Continue reading Upon the Death of a Bradford Pear
In The Country of the Pointed Firs, Sarah Orne Jewett wrote of a woman named Mrs. Almira Todd, who lived in a clapboard house on the coast of Maine---a gardener and a landlady and "an ardent lover of herbs, both wild and tame." They grew out from her gray-shingled walls and up her steep gables, … Continue reading Scent on a Spring Breeze
My pastor said last Sunday that it's no mistake where we meet Jesus. I met him at the kitchen table, when I was still small enough to fit on my dad's lap. He had unlatched and pulled the two halves of the table apart, so there was a gap where the leaves might go. On … Continue reading At the Kitchen Table
“Our post-Christian neighbors need to hear and see and taste and feel authentic Christianity, hospitality spreading from every Christian home that includes neighbors in prayer, food, friendship, childcare, dog walking, and all the daily matters upon which friendships are built.” ~ Rosaria Butterfield, The Gospel Comes with a House Key Things that made me happy … Continue reading Friendship, Prayer, Milk, & Tea
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
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
There is a basic qualification to be a volunteer Storm Spotter for the National Weather Service, and it is blessedly simple: Look up. Were anything more technical asked of me, I would not have taken the class; but as it is, I already spend a lot of time watching the sky. It turns out that … Continue reading Look Up
"May this hearth be to us a port in the storm,a cheering beacon, and a place of fellowshipmarked by the consolation of your Spirit." ~ Douglas McKelvey, Every Moment Holy Things that were good in January: A New Year's Day fire in the hearth How Esther does sign language to the songs in church Kiddo … Continue reading Hearthfires & Hockey
