Dad would pick up “Birds of North America”  mid-meal to identify the Rufus Sided Towhee  and Varied Thrush that visited our trees.  We kept binoculars on the piano by the table, and Dad pointed out how illustrators  painted field marks more vividly than they appear in life. 

Home and flower garden in La Roche-sur-Yon, France. She was the universe my needy life then knew; She opened windows in my tiny heart and mind. All living worlds lay veiled then in mist and shadow,  but she spoke colors for the birds, and clouds, and trees. My heart drew reason from her sense of things in words I wouldn’t have—had Mom not loved me first.

Saint Martins Saint Francis Episcopal Church , Rockport, Wash. One can perhaps remember  growing up a certain way.  And then have memories  mean something else in retrospect.  A toddler, for example, might  remember an attempt to kill the president  not for the event but for the feeling  in his mother's eyes when she heard the news.  And then that child might years later  see half-remembered footage  and have context  for a lot of other things.  There might be truth  to these “new” thoughts,  if one can call thoughts “new”  that seem so rooted in the past.  But with what eyes, what heart, what mind  does one look back?  And what exactly  are we looking at? 

Last footprints in new snow First flowers on the grave Last conversation on the phone First Sunday after confirmation Last failed kindness First train to Paris Last day of school First cry Last Christmas home First garden squash Last hug of recognition First prayer at Notre Dame Last Supper First week in therapy Last leaves of fall First ultrasound Last gurgled breath First buttercups

One morning my wife left this, a gift from her mother, next to her pillow. If you were gone, I'd miss your smile, your giggle, and your laugh; the outline of your forehead, nose, the angle of your chin. If you were gone, I'd miss your warmth, your touch, your tears, hugs, kisses, outstretched arms, your opinions of my clothes. If you were gone, I'd miss shared sunrises on the couch: your coffee, the cat, the smell of autumn through the screen. If you were gone, I'd miss the way you want to be surprised, the way you plan adventures the expressions in your eyes. If you were gone, I'd miss the concert tickets in your purse, the Disney films and Broadway, and the memories we rehearse. If you were gone, I'd miss the days to bring you flowers and the meaning and the colors your living brings to mine. If you were gone, I'd miss your giving and your gentleness, the way you wrap up boxes, gifts for other broken hearts. If you were gone, I'd want you to know that

A t SkyFest 2017 we watched a P-51 Mustang perform over Fairchild Air Force Base. It was painted with invasion stripes like those on aircraft during and after the Normandy invasion. The announcer talked about its history and drew the crowd's attention to its sound. He said those engines aren't made anymore and they can only be rebuilt so many times before these flying bits of history become permanently grounded. The P-51 was followed by U.S. Air Force A-10 Warthogs, a U.S. Navy FA-18 Super Hornet, and the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds.  People waved to pilots as they taxied past. The technical achievement, discipline, and economic power represented by each aircraft and pilot brought back the wonder I felt when we first visited the Boeing Museum of Flight and when I read books about early airmail pilots. A North American P-51B Mustang in invasion stripes, photographed at the Spokane Skyfest airshow, 24 July 2010, Mark Wagner, Creative Commons. But this display also reminded me t

I'm old enough now to regret a lot of things I've said. But I don't think I've regretted things I haven't said Except some times I didn't say, "Love you" And when I've not said, "yes"...or "no"

The Oklahoma County Courthouse facade,  facing Park Avenue in  Oklahoma City, Okla.  Several  role plays in the  new prison curriculum lacked realism, she said . And she wanted to know how I got a job writing character-training material for prisoners. It was family day  for the faith and character pods at the Oklahoma Department of Corrections’ Mabel Basset Correctional Center. She had a tear tattooed in the corner of her eye, and I had a feeling her...balogna...meter was finely tuned. The DOC had contracted with my then employer, Character First, to see whether character-based programming could―in connection with anger-management, cognitive behavior change, and other programming―change the culture for long-term prisoners. Apparently it was obvious I didn't have much experience in prison. But her question triggered two questions in my mind. First, on what basis can we talk about ethics? Because we talked about various character qualities―aspects of personal integrity―we had to g

G.K. and Frances Chesterton, 1911 (Public Domain)  In his book, "Heretics," G.K. Chesterton held forth " On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small ," " The Mildness of the Yellow Press ," " On the Wit of Whistler ," and other things. Chesterton wrote “Orthodoxy” —his “slovenly autobiography”—“in a set of mental pictures rather than in a series of deductions, to state the philosophy in which I have come to believe.” He was responding to G.S. Street and others who criticized “Heretics” for not supporting its arguments with sufficient examples. "Orthodoxy" begins with an argument from sanity. He writes, “...as all thoughts and theories were once judged by whether they tended to make a man lose his soul, so for our present purpose all modern thoughts and theories may be judged by whether they tend to make a man lose his wits.” He does not merely question modern materialist assumptions; he moves from example to example, turning mod

At age 23, I met a friend who pointed out the whiteness of many home schoolers' lists of heroes. Her point was reinforced when my next job involved researching Sergeant William Carney and the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry and others...trying to find characters and stories that would bridge racial divides...recognizing for the first time the patronizing tone of some things I read...hearing offhand remarks that Martin Luther King Jr. was disqualified because he protested the Vietnam war. There's cultural pressure on white people—or I used to thing there was—not to be racist, a word I've tended to associate with white supremacists. So some of us scurry for safe, logical colorblindness. This is why a member of a minority who brings up racial issues—or who might have mixed feelings about #bluelivesmatter—seems “angry” or “racist” to a lot of whites. It 's also why I felt so confused the night a bunch of us were at a steakhouse and a black friend and a Latino friend sta