Improvement or Transformation?

Rocking, basking, relaxing on the front porch, she is clearly master of her 2-acre domain; at least, that’s what I extrapolate at 25 bumpy miles-per-hour on the pockmarked road passing along her fence, the path my sub-par GPS has mapped for me on the way to a church...

People of the Book

The smell of musty paper, the look of newly white or agedly yellow leaves, the whispered sound of a turning page—none of those things affects me like so many (so, so many) of my friends. I don’t know why. I actually admire that sentiment in others; I just don’t have...

Eternity Envelopes Us

One opposite to time’s moment is eternity-to-come: “then” replacing “now”; future’s fulness overcoming present’s poverty. Thoreau uses a stream to describe another opposition: a juxtaposition of what is constantly passing with what just as constantly remains. “Time is...

Before Traffic Arrives

I stand at an intersection waiting for the light to cycle so I can cross a major thoroughfare. To my left, oncoming traffic in the right lane heads directly for me, my safety resting entirely in the drivers’ compliance with the road’s gentle bend. I am flippantly...

Words That Cleanse

It is early November, and autumn’s leaves blanket the ground. Each year, our elm canopy releases individual leaves to arc, spiral, or tumble down erratic paths onto the sidewalk, patio, and driveway behind the house. But this year, in October, the leaves, the fence,...