My habit in large waiting rooms is to walk. I’m always surprised by how far I can go while not going anywhere, just pacing or doing circuits, waiting my turn. I’m surprised, too, by how…
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Geoff stands on our snow-covered side stoop, bundled against the single-digit cold. Grinning through his frosty white beard, he delivers me a gift on behalf of his wife, Sue: a big, warm pair of mittens,…
In my dream, I’m visiting a dear friend whom I don’t often get to see. Each hour of our time together is precious.
As our reunion is nearing its unwelcome end, we hear a soft knock on the door. Answering, we find Katie, an itty-bitty angel, not even five feet tall. In waking life, I know her as a woman in her late eighties, a mother of twelve, a longtime hospital chaplain, a lover of the arts. Her short-term memory has turned into a sieve, too holey to hold much of anything anymore. But her heart remains a huge earthen bowl, capable of holding the world.
A friend shows me a beautiful potted mum. Its rich orange-red buds have burst open with vibrant sprays of sun-yellow at their center. The plant—of a variety called “Autumn Sunset”—is simply gorgeous. “The garden center…
This morning I delivered Jihong to the Sioux Falls airport, an hour south of us, for the first leg of an overseas business trip.
As he’d prepared to leave home, a strange sequence of problems bedeviled our household appliances:
My laptop died.
Our coffeemaker died.
Our hot water heater died.
Our gas fireplace died.
Imagine yourself holding a hammer.
Now, strike your hammer against a big pane of tempered glass.
Watch the glass shatter into thousands of crystalline pieces, dropping all around your feet.
Hear the initial crash of their fall. Hear the gentle tinkling in the silence that follows, as bits of glass sink and settle.
Eden is nine years old. Her family lives across the street from Annette Langlois Grunseth, a dear friend of mine who, in her seventies, is a beautiful ball of energy.
Eden and Annette have turned into a dynamic duo. You see, Eden, a fourth grader, wants to be a writer someday. And Annette just happens to be an award-winning author and poet.
In the July 10 edition of Staying Power, I told you about “Humanity Present,” an opportunity for shared, silent gazing that I intend to offer in a public setting, here where I reside. Planning for…
This is a follow-up to last week’s musing, titled “Would You Sit in the Chair?” In case you missed that, or it’s fuzzy in your memory, let me quickly recap: I intend to find a public…
Note: In our last edition of Staying Power, I told a story about how stars had come to be in the night sky. In response, a reader asked me how the daytime sky had come…
This is my version of a story I first heard from Laura Packer. I keep retelling it in different settings, because the world keeps needing to hear it. In the beginning, there was only light…
Shortly after midnight, I’m wakened by severe spasms in my belly and gnawing pain in my lower back. Almost at once I recognize the symptoms: kidney stones. I’ve experienced such an attack before. Passing big…
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