Frogs Surprisingly Like Humans

Already turned back from two trails by deep water, I took one covered by only a few inches of slow overflow from the nearby creek. Now pedaling inconsistently at a snail’s pace, I looked down to see a small frog cross just in front of me, swimming unevenly,...

Remembering the Savior Crucified

The attached painting is by 19th Century German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich: Cross and Church in the Mountains, 1812. As a movement, Romanticism paints emotion, mystery, belonging, and nature on the Enlightenment’s rationalism, science, individualism, and...

You Are Bought with a Price

I have a comfortable cabin under jeweled skies on a rocky, forested slope just across the Divide from the Rio Grande’s source. Circumstances allowing, I spend a week there each year. The other 51 weeks of the year, I offer it to a long-time friend, who in turn often...

A Messenger Declaring Mysteries of Beauty

Feet-long ice spears fall freely and sporadically from tree limbs and utility lines as warming temperatures and gravity gradually strip them of the residue of this 3-day-long Texas winter. The woods are a giant arbor dog shaking off its cold bath in slow motion. In...