Category: Arts & Culture
Kitchen of Grace
People ask me, “What are you doing in Denver?” I tell them I’m helping Karen Taylor and Tammy Ross cook 700 meals for our youth group from Bartlesville, with very little refrigerator space which means I’m on a first name basis with grocery clerks on Colorado avenue. In the midst of cooking, washing dishes, and […]
Singing with Al Green
Karen and I were driving through Wisconsin farmland a couple of years ago, and I was overcome by pastoral splendor although it may have been too many cheese curds. I began singing America the Beautiful, like Ray Charles, because after all, my middle name is Ray. I’ve always loved that song. It’s not ambivalent, it resolves, […]
The Singing Stream
I have two brothers. My brother the doctor has spent some time in jail. But he got better…more on that later. The younger is a preacher who has written several books. I have always wanted to write a novel. I’ve started at least a dozen novels in my mind but none have gotten past page […]
Doodling with Snoopy
My wife travels with me and my golf partner, Shawn Barker…not because she loves golf. She simply loves the surroundings and the time spent wandering places like Flagstaff and Monterey and Santa Rosa. After a yoga session in Santa Rosa this past week, she sat alone in a coffee shop and a man across the […]
Midnight Confession
Word. Word is a strange word…the longer you stare at it, the odder it becomes. Stranger still is the moment you hear correct words in a song after many years of singing the wrong words. Karen was making a Margherita pizza last night while singing Midnight Confession, a song by The Grass Roots from […]
Colorado Travelogue: Red Bank
I tagged along with Karen to a yoga studio in Denver on our vacation. On the mat next to Karen is a woman who lives in Connecticut, although she grew up in Red Bank, NJ. Karen grew up in New Jersey and we lived in Tabernacle, NJ during our early years of marriage. We are […]
55
…children believe their parents to be fools when they are of “a certain age” and then they pass through vintage moment(s), return to us, and want to hang out, ask for advice, laugh at our jokes (or at least not roll their eyes quite as dramatically)…and yet they are still our children, only smarter than us, better looking, and somehow poised and eloquent and we think it strangely odd?
Le Temps
Certain languages, including French and Bulgarian, have one word for both“time” and “weather.” The French is rendered Le Temps. One of my treasured moments as a Dad combined weather, time, and beauty. I was sitting on a peak in Arkansas with my son on a Sunday morning singing while watching a thunderstorm roll in not […]
Toronto journal 4: King Lear and the Subterranean Underground
“We are going to Hyde Park to see King Lear,” Brandon said. Turns out he said High Park. Which is where we sat, perched high on a hill overlooking the outdoor stage at High Park in north Toronto. My expectations were low but I did carry high expectations in a picnic bag, a sub sandwich […]
Bespoke 