I was just getting ready to test out the brisket sausage when David Longoria sat down across the table from me as if we had known each other forever. It was a slow Saturday in Everman on the southern fringes of Fort Worth. The temperature hovered around 100 outside. Inside the small restaurant with the […]
“In the quiet, secret night she was by herself again. It was not late–yellow squares of light showed in the windows of the houses along the streets. She walked slow, with her hands in her pockets and her head to one side. For a long time she walked without noticing the direction. “Then the houses […]
Maybe I was a little premature. When I saw my Haitian neighbor leaving town awhile back, I wrote a letter assuming that his departure meant we were going to see a more general exodus from town. I wrote the letter in frustration over the wretched condition of our immigration policies. The Haitian community on the […]
I saw you yesterday pulling on a frayed nylon cord to tie down the mattresses on the roof of your car. You’re leaving town and we never got to say ‘hello.’ I’ve seen you in the Food Lion and the Wal-mart and I’ve been tempted to try to speak. But my high school French, which […]
Do you like where Heartlands goes–exploring the places that make the world rich and miraculous? Would you like to develop that sense of place in your own writing? Then why not come to the first Heartlands writing weekend? Located at The Porches Writing Retreat, in beautiful, secluded Norwood, Virginia–a site featured in a 2017 Heartlands […]
Originally posted on think and let think:
This week on the Strangely Warmed podcast I speak with Alex Joyner about the readings for the Day of Pentecost – Year B (Acts 2.1-21, Psalm 104.24-35b, Romans 8.22-27, John 15.26-17, 16.4b-15). Alex is the District Superintendent for the Eastern Shore in the Virginia Conference, and he regularly blogs on…
On Easter Sunday…some thoughts from my first visit to Jerusalem in 2011… I would say that the world is a hopeless place…except it’s not. Somewhere around here – at the Garden Tomb, under a church – there’s an empty tomb to prove it. It’s what we have to offer this place – emptiness. Absence. If […]
Originally posted on Tell it Slant:
On January 13 Alex Joyner posted his stunning new poem, “Sunset in Archer County,” on his Heartlands blog. Coincidentally, that same day an employee of Hawaii’s emergency alert system issued a false alarm that terrified residents and visitors: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS…
There are a couple of verbal tics that are reaching peak annoyance right now. At the low end of the scale, (which runs from “What did he say?” to “Nails-on-a-chalkboard”), is the dulling of the simple preposition ‘to.’ In spoken English the word is gradually losing its “ooo” vowel sound and being replaced with the […]
It has finally happened. I seriously had the thought that I would not attend an event just because I knew that, two days later, I would receive the dreaded email evaluation. “It will only take 5-10 minutes of your time,” the email will say. Great. I’ll get to it right after the questionnaires related to […]
