I’m writing this from the 17th floor of a beach-side balcony with one eye on the sun rising over the Atlantic Ocean and one eye on my screen. The sun rises in the east just like at home where Karen and I admire it’s ascent from our garden patio each morning in Oklahoma. Here it […]
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 […]
If you’ve ever wondered what goes on in the mind of an introvert writer, here it is. We like judging people. Not in the indicting sense, but rather as a playful mind game that often displaces conversation. Shame on us who prefer an imagined conversation rather than reality. It does, however, assuage the boredom of […]
After breakfast we opened the French doors as a breeze gently entered our room off sun-drenched Lake Alster. Just as a breeze blew in on Pentecost in the book of Acts. Just as that same breeze ripples through the lives of my family in a non-coercive way. Gently, hopefully, faithfully, lovely. I listened to my […]
I grew up in a home that severely limited my creative outlet of language…I wasn’t allowed to curse, nor was I given the freedom to vent with words that hinted of the real four-letter curse words, the baby curse words like heck and shoot and darn. These were deemed unpolished and tainted by the very […]
Yesterday I experienced two moving moments. One was simple, a man walking along a sidewalk in my hometown. He was arguing passionately with someone, but he was totally alone, his actions said that he was invisible, and I felt sad. The second moment was poignant and filled my soul with warmth. It happened after my […]
If I wrote like my wife talks, I’d write narrative like a kid writing home from summer camp, “I had oatmeal for breakfast and we played softball and I outran all the boys in a foot race and we had hamburgers for dinner…” But, I write like a Red Bull-drinking cat on a hot tin […]
This weekend the Sooner football team defeated Notre Dame and I skimmed along the mud flat shoals of the Red River in an air boat with four college buddies. We powered upstream through the shallow grassy sandbars pausing to shut down the engine to chat with our guide. We then headed downstream until we reached […]
I’ve always loved cool…have no idea what it is but I love it. Perhaps I have no idea because cool expresses not one meaning or attitude but many, a cross-pollinated adjective moving fluidly in many cultures and languages. An Anglo can say cool in Chinese (kù 酷) and it means essentially the same as in […]
Originally posted on Bespoke:
It was the first time I ever prayed with my face touching the earth…and the first time I have ever had a prayer interrupted by a President of the United States. I lay prostrate on the green grass surrounding the Washington Monument, praying with ten other men in a tight circle,…
Bespoke 