Loren Paulsson

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 giv

A Gothic arch soared over the altar, almost to the ceiling. A crucifix hung within the arch. A smaller niche on each side provided further relief within the building's modern concrete circularity. Six sections of pews radiate out and up from the altar steps to the entry from the narthex. Sunlight streamed in through the tall, narrow, stained glass windows. Worshipers paused and bowed toward the altar before entering their pews. It was the last Sunday before the Advent season at Holy Apostles in East Wenatchee, Wash. I slipped into a back row. And I thought about the physicality of worship. Stadtkirche Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany I grew up in Pentecostal, Assembly of God , churches and remember stories of George Müller and miraculous answers to prayer. There were family camps and revival meetings—places God's power was supposed to move in special ways. I have a cousin who paints water colors as part of her church worship team. At one of those revival meetings, the evangelis

An elm stands by the trail dead But for two ravens and a hawk Perched on brittle branches Recoiled as at the shock of doom. Trunk shrouded now in tattered bark Once took its shape from wind and sun When with its autumn leaves It testified of springs to come.

Predawn light bathed the landscape blue. I walked from the resort where we stayed toward downtown. “Flower Dancing in the Wind” stands nearly life sized at the intersection of Woodin and Webster avenues, part of the Lake Chelan Outdoor Gallery —36 murals and sculptures in and around Chelan and Manson, Wash. My plan was to photograph the sculpture at sunrise. I started from what seemed a respectful distance and then worked around to catch the detail of her beadwork. That's when I realized her face was turned away. It felt awkward...like being too in her space. It rattled me enough that I resumed walking...and kept thinking. Seeing sculpture through a phone camera allowed focus on details I would have only half experienced otherwise. Perhaps because it can be touched and walked around, sculpture seems more embodied. She stands in ecstatic motion, embracing the sky, her left foot touching earth...rootedness and freedom. Sculptor Jerry McKellar says, “The original inspiration for this

Thank you for list'ning when I don't know what to say. Thank you for caring when I don't know how to feel. Thanks for the every day experience of love. Thank you for making sure I brush my teeth at night. Thanks for the clothes you wash, and fold, and wash again. Thank you for saying you'd live anywhere with me. Thanks for the food you fix and pack into my lunch. Thank you for sharing all of you, your sadness too. Thanks for the musicals I've seen because of you. Thanks for the joys and for the friends you share with me. Thanks for the way you smile the music of your laugh. Thanks for your beauty and your anger and your pain. Thanks for forgiving me, and thanks for being mine. Thank you for the courage that you show every day.

It's 1933, at night. A boy in a brown cowboy hat wanders into a wild west show, part of a fair almost in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge, which began construction Jan. 5 that year.  An erie silence surrounds the stuffed bison and the grizzly bear. When the Indian moves, the boy fires his cap gun repeatedly, startled by what he thought he understood but didn't expect.  That's how we come to meet Tonto in Gore Verbinski's "The Lone Ranger." And that's how Tonto comes to tell of Ke-mo sah-bee.  Whether because we're seeing through the boy's imagination or through Tonto's memory, the story lurches along with the zaniness one might expect from a director (Verbinski), two writers (Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio), and a leading actor (Johnny Depp) well known for their work on "Pirates of the Caribbean."  It's not a formula that works for everybody. Peter Travers wrote in Rolling Stone  wrote, "The fatal flaw in Jerry Bruckheimer&

Autumn leaves, Carroll County, Ark. The first frost nips the garden;   the woodshed's full, and we recall mornings past when we saw blooms and image'd fruit. One by one things loved escape, people too, like autumn leaves, slip their places and return to earth beneath the trees. Then we cold, hungry children must  sometimes be carried home to dine though undeserving and wonder what we know. Fallen tree Carroll County, Ark.

West coast of France Like wine, a baguette, and some well-made cheese, Like two lines from a half-remembered song, Like earth and waves meet and become the beach, It feels like you have known me all along. Like sunlight through high cathedral windows, Your thoughts illumine things—human, divine, And in your eyes, my tangled thoughts compose; Grace in your person takes shape more defined. Your smile’s a joy but wondered at before, Each breathless line and curve excelling dream; Intoxicating whisper in my ear, Your touch refreshing as a mountain stream. You are the half I didn't know I missed, Each word, each look, each kiss a priceless gift.

Like small boys who first pick flow'ring weeds for mother, I see new things and run to share with others too. But wonder's in the thing and not my knowing it. For beauty is before it's seen and shared about. And maybe there  is wonder in the sharing too. For beauty too is something good to be beheld. But silly would we think the man who cherished weeds For there is more  to share than what we know today. But seizing this world for our own makes good things small. And thinking we  have known it all makes us fools still. But turned toward the sun and rain like flowers do, We start to know the world and ourselves again.