just enough light

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. […]

I watched a little drama unfold one day in the hallway of the counseling center where I worked.  One of my colleagues had been teaching another colleague how to knit.  The new student of knitting brought his first product to work to show.  It was the first 8” of a scarf.  As he proudly displayed […]

I’m a bit of a sucker for those TV shows that transforms a house that has been overtaken by clutter.  I’m not talking about hoarding. That’s a whole ‘nother level of disorder.  I’m talking about people like me who accumulate stuff because we like it or think we need it, only to discover at some […]

If I introduced you to friends of mine by saying, “Hi, I want you meet my friend, Chris.  He’s an ordinary person,” you might be offended.  If school handed out bumper stickers that instead of reading “Honor Student,” read “Ordinary student:  Struggling Hard, Learning Lots,” would we be inclined to put that on our cars?  […]

During the pregnancy for both of our children, Judy and I prayed and worried and hoped our child would be born with all the fingers and toes and with the normal mental and physical capacities of newborns.  Infertility and miscarriages had made these legitimate worries for us.  In short, we wanted a normal, healthy baby. […]

Stan, a college sophomore, extremely bright and capable with a long record of successes had withdrawn from the university because he was flunking.  He was utterly ashamed.  It was baffling to him because none of his work was over his head, none of what was expected of him academically was beyond his capabilities.  Yet he […]