A poem a day might well keep despair away. I’ve been reading 150 Most Famous Poems published by Poetry House with works by Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and many more. What I find so extraordinary is that while reading, I enter a sort of dreamland, […]
Where Life United
Your eyes record a different world than mine, Without my music, books, or time. Declining years loom ahead, Your face lights with futuristic hope instead. Joking, you say, go back to days long past, But no return would I gladly clasp. Childhood bittersweet, Adolescence confusion reaped. Love and marriage replaced […]
Learning the Craft: Battling Discouragement
In the last post, we talked about the damage that rejection and criticism do to a writer’s spirit. Most writers are sensitive, quiet people who are unsure about their calling. So how do you weather the endless rejections from publishers and critics? First, remember the rejection that Jesus received. Imagine […]
I Lift My Gaze
“That’s what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.” ~Walt Disney When I heard Walt Disney’s quote in the movie Saving Mr. Banks a few weeks ago, I knew that he had hit upon a powerful truth. Little did I realize at the time […]
Love’s Fire
Last evening, my kids gathered on a far section of our land. We traipsed across a rickety bridge over our ever-widening creek to reach it. Sheltered by old-growth maples, full of tall grass, vines, and brambles, it’s a wild bit of land. The kids worked hard to clear a space […]
Remember
The wonder of a child’s stare, As once we climbed a tree on dare. The humming, buzzing bee, Ourselves did marvel at flurry-wings see. Sharp green apples snatched, High branches, contentment wrapped. Unleashed from class, Homeward dash. Friends to play, Blazing trails to stray. Holiday fun-arranged, Presents-exchanged. Growing, planning, hoping, […]
Come Out of the Cold
Stupid mistakes left Trix cold. Her own especially. Who on planet Earth was responsible for spelling? And could she find a legal precedent for killing the nameless perpetrators outright or would it have to be a clandestine affair? Though surely, she’d had a good portion of the world’s fifth-graders in […]
Head for Shore
The lake before me runs at an even pace with ripples breaking against the rocky, wooded shoreline. November trees adorned with crumpled, brown leaves shiver in a cold breeze. Evergreens standout, their pine branches waving as if to salute distant friends who never get any closer. This should be a […]
Opportunities
Every now and again, an opportunity strolls up and shakes my hand. Over the years, my response has changed from over-exuberant my-life will-now-be-so-much-better fantasy to a take-it-as-it-comes-live-in-the-moment reality, saving me a great deal of disappointment and offering me a whole new take on life. Recently, I connected with two podcasters, Dick and Jay, who […]
We’re on the Same Island
Though I do believe that John Donne was right, “No man is an island,” since we are all connected to the God who made us, I must also toss in a clarification: suffering can separate us in ways that islands don‘t dare to dream. For the past several months, I’ve […]