It’s easy to imagine her, her body shaped around her pain the way a tree grows around a field stone, bends to the givenness of the thing. But beyond that, what do we know? Was she young, old, fat, skinny, angry, resigned? We know only that the blood, the slow muddy endless river of it, stained everything, her touch, her breath, her gaze, until her life became a drama of evasion. Then one day he happened by on urgent business, coming from a showdown heading to a showdown, betw

A few weeks ago, I wrote on Thin Places. My wife Cheryl has now written on that theme, and says it better and with richer insight than me. So I'm posting her thoughts here. Enjoy. Early Celtic Christians recognized “thin places,” places where the veil between heaven and earth is very sheer, or tissue paper thin. Places where prayers were easily uttered, and perceptibly heard. But even before Christianity came to the Celt’s, there was recognition of these places as well as t

I will keep this brief: I’m away with Cheryl, celebrating 26 years of marriage, and I have other things on my mind. The place we’re staying – the exquisite and, under the circumstance, aptly named Honeymoon Bay Retreat Center, is quiet this morning – which it is every morning, I think, and afternoon, and evening. The gardens are bathed in sunlight. A gardener mulches earth outside the window. A thread of spider web, gleaming like silver, spans a pane of glass. On the table b