Friday, July 30, 2010
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Winged Migration is perhaps the most beautiful film I have ever seen. My wife told me I’d like it, and said she wanted me to see it, but at first I didn’t heed her suggestion. It was a DVD, our computer was not much, and DVD players seemed complicated, so [...]
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Minneapolis, Minnesota
I awake full of both gratitude and astonishment.
The astonishment stems from an increasing awareness of how much I have yet to learn, understand, and take to heart.
The gratitude comes from my regular Wednesday morning practice of walking across the street to a church I do not attend on Sundays, but [...]
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Minneapolis, Minnesota
I want to talk about healing.
But I do not want to do it in a hospital.
I do not begrudge them, nor is there a chip on my shoulder. Well, on second thought, perhaps there is. And perhaps there even should be. In my view the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower [...]
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Several weeks ago I shared with you how deeply I believe in the power of letters. There is nothing quite like a well thought-out letter, I wrote. But in our era of scanners, I found that the responses to my Washington-bound letter had little to do with my actual questions [...]
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Minneapolis, Minnesota
It cost a dollar.
The new library card, that is.
“I lost my card,” I said to the attendant at the check out desk. “Can I get another?”
“Do you have ID?” he asked.
“I do,” I said, showing him my license.
“It’ll be a dollar,” he said.
“A dollar? You mean access to all these books [...]
Friday, July 23, 2010
Minneapolis, Minnesota
I begin with a confession.
Compelling ideas are a side affect of my strokes. When an idea hits, when a concept comes home, when a thought takes wing, it lodges itself in every cell of my body, mind, and soul. Perception runs around the bases not once but three times.
I was [...]
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Minneapolis, Minnesota
You may have noticed in these pages how often I refer to church.
It is, perhaps, because in church we talk about life. Sometimes, to my great regret, we’re quite sure that truth is to be found in an unending litany of complaint. But sometimes when we are authentic enough, and caring [...]
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Madison, Wisconsin
“What is comes down to,” my father said to me as he rested from physical therapy, and waited for something to happen in his hospital/nursing home bed, “is simple. I have to figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”
The nursing home does things, to [...]
Monday, July 19, 2010
Madison, Wisconsin
It is 276 miles from our apartment to the nursing home where my parents heal. I leave Minneapolis in the late afternoon, knowing I’ll arrive in Madison long after sun has set. There is a rhythm to these drives. As the sun sets National Public Radio rounds out the day. [...]
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Minneapolis, Minnesota
We have an innate desire to simplify. Indeed, it is a neurological necessity. There are too many things going on at any moment to make sense of the world, and so we look for trends, for patterns, for a few sign posts that point the way.
We find them on bumper [...]