just enough light

As I stood silently, my candle in hand, I looked around at the faces of about a hundred twenty-somethings at the candlelight vigil. The evening air was heavy with sadness as they gathered to commemorate the life and death of their friend.  Her death was tragic.  She was pulled from a house fire too late.  […]

I was always nervous as I prepared to meet with more than 100 university students, leaders of the campus fraternities and sororities.  The topic was “Helping students through grief.”  On a large campus with an active Greek system, it was not unusual for someone in the house to experience the death of a parent, sibling, […]

In William Manchester’s novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow, the main character makes the observation, “When my father was getting along in years, and the past began to figure more in his conversation, I asked him one day what my mother was like.  I knew what she was like as my mother but I thought […]

Have you ever been overwhelmed with too many options?  How about too many GOOD options?  I’m the kind of person who likes to consider as many possibilities as possible before a decision, and it doesn’t help me if the options are all favorable.  I frequently get overwhelmed with such decisions.  Even if it’s a relatively […]

If you haven’t read “Just enough light” yet, take a minute and do that. Arriving at the cottage after dark is always an adventure, particularly if I have forgotten to bring along a flashlight.  Without one, I shuffle carefully toward the cottage, mindful of but blind to the many roots, rocks, and bumps that lie […]

I love watching a skilled potter.  As the wheel turns, it almost looks like the potter’s hands bring the clay to life, forming the outside and inside of the vase from the bottom up.   It looks easy enough.  I know it’s not. A student told our university class about making pottery on a wheel.  She said there were […]

Some time back I was sitting at one of my favorite spots for getting serious work done, the Pancake House, coffee at my fingertips, papers spread across the table in my booth.  As I wrote, I was aware of a conversation going on between two college women in the booth behind me.  I was not […]

When the firecracker blew up in my hand, I knew I needed help.  Steve and I had been playing in his back yard doing what most 11 year-old boys do when unsupervised; taking unnecessary risks.  We were lighting firecrackers, holding them until the fuse burned down a bit, then throwing them.  That’s fine as long […]

Changing one’s mind is one of the three hardest things for a person to do, according to Anthony de Mello.  The other two are returning good for evil and admitting we are wrong.  But those two are for later articles.  Changing our minds isn’t about compromising our principles or reversing our position on an issue […]

By the time you read this, the Texas House of Representatives will have voted on and likely passed the state budget which severely cuts the funds for public education.  This will, of course, have significant repercussions not only for those who work in our schools, but it will negatively impact the state over the long-term. […]