Climate Change and the Work of Peace
The day after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, we gathered at Lake Junaluska for our seventh annual Interfaith Peace Conference. Our theme this year was “The …
Corn, Wind, and Sun
We just drove out to western Minnesota from our home here in the Smoky Mountains, taking in our old stomping grounds in Milwaukee on the way. We needed face time …
Time in Lakeview
Lakeview, Oregon, nestles at the foot of Black Cap, a promontory of the Warner Mountains in south central Oregon, its shoulders soft with sagebrush in grey abundance like a lawn …
The Great Migration
Like the rest of you I have been trying to get my mind and heart around the explosive migration of refugees from war, political collapse, and drought that has engulfed …
Restoring our Memories, Restoring Ourselves
The work of remembering takes patience, persistence, and an attention to detail. So I am finding out as I painstakingly sort through almost four hundred photographs from my mother’s stay …
Searching for Identity on Cyprus
We returned almost a month ago from two weeks on Cyprus after a rich tour of Egypt’s ancient sites. As we flew over the Mediterranean from Cairo to Larnaca, Cyprus, …
Sawdust and Soul
Over the past fifteen years I have carried on a lively conversation about woodworking with my good friend John de Gruchy—he in South Africa’s Western Cape, I in the mountains …
Of Patriots and Matriots
For us Northern Hemisphere folks who follow the Greco-Latinate calendar, this is a time of endings and new beginnings, of passage into darkness and out into light, from the dying …
The Bells of San Albino
We are spending the month of February in the little town of Mesilla, adjacent to Las Cruces, New Mexico. Mesilla (pronounced “Meh-SEE-yah”), which means “little table,” was formed shortly after …
Desert Reflections
The electronic world makes it easy to forget the real world expanses of this planet. We just completed a 2400-mile road trip from the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to …
A Tale of Two Capes
Last week Sylvia and I visited North Carolina’s Cape Fear region, the southern tip of the series of islands, shoals, and lagoons that form an elbow into the Atlantic, nudging …
The OIKOS Papers on Work, Family and Faith
Almost thirty years ago my wife Sylvia and I launched an adult education program we called the OIKOS Project on Work, Family and Faith. Through colorful visuals, talks, and worksheet …
Wounded Whole
We live in the presence of one of the largest Tulip Poplar trees in the state of North Carolina. Almost twenty feet around at its base, reaching up over a …
Mountains, Men, Mines and Minerals
We have just returned from six weeks in the Western Cape of South Africa and ten days exploring central Namibia, its neighbor to the north. While it is the people …