Transitions in Scotland
We just returned from two weeks in Scotland. Many months ago we planned to visit the Island of Iona to participate in a week-long retreat at the historic Abbey. We …
My Cyprus Memoir is Available
Regular readers will know, through my earlier reports on our travels to Cyprus in 2012 and 2015, that this has been five years in the making. By using an e-book …
Crystal Bridges
A stunning museum of American art in the Ozarks of northwestern Arkansas? Well, get used to it. We tried to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in 2014 …
The Great River
Here the Rio Grande is dry a hollow bone without the marrow a sleeping body without blood waiting patient as the ceaseless wind blowing tumbleweeds …
The Heritage of Mata Ortiz
Las Cruces is in America’s Borderland with Mexico. We are staying, in fact, in Old Mesilla, where the Gadsden Purchase was signed that defined the geographical border between the two …
Petroglyphs at Three Rivers
Images of lizards birds sheep stuck full of arrows suns and faces …
O Sacred Head
In the Organ Mountains the head of a canyon often weeps among the desolated trees. It’s a sacred place where the earth’s ribs wounded by …
Looking for America
We have been on the road again. In a moment when our country seems to have lost its way, this is one way to try to find the “real” America …
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 …
Art and Craft at Warm Springs and Timberline Lodge
My final report on our Oregon trip begins with the Museum at Warm Springs, on the eastern flank of the Cascades north of Bend. The Warm Springs Reservation is home …
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 …
Crater Lake
The Cascade Range, stretching along the West Coast from northern California into British Columbia, is by far the most volcanic region in North America. Seattle’s Mt. Ranier, Portland’s Mt. Hood, …
The Oregon Bach Festival
In days of violent acts and words, we all need times to center ourselves again in beauty that orders a world, in memories that give it meaning, and grandeur that …
The Gift of Mother Emanuel
Last week Sylvia and I went on a long-planned visit to Charleston, South Carolina, a beautiful and historic city we had not seen in twenty-five years. Founded in 1680, its …
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, …
Memories in Egypt
People my age are acutely aware of their memories and the work of memory. It starts with our own effort to figure out what all these pictures are that were …