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Bray into the Dying Light
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… →
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This Verbal Tic is Driving Us Crazy, Right?
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 →
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The Myth of the Cosmic Skybox
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 →
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Stateless People
Up on Ministry Matters…my essay on the Rohingya and Christian thinking about statelessness: http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/8471/stateless-people?spMailingID=814690&spUserID=Mzk4Njg5MDI2S0&spJobID=400348494&spReportId=NDAwMzQ4NDk0S0 →
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The Texture of a Passing World
Up on the Street Light blog today is my latest travelogue – a thumbnail sketch of Quanah Parker’s Star House and an old Oklahoma amusement park: https://streetlightmag.com/2017/10/16/texture-of-a-passing-world/ For more on Street Light and its editor, Trudy Hale, check out my earlier interview with her here. →
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Fake Candles at the Tomb: A Holy Land Reflection
We’d all like a Holy Land made in our own image. I’ve just spent two weeks in Israel and Palestine and there are a few things I’d change. Yes, ending the occupation and a two-state solution are on the list. (More on that to come.) But, less grandly, how about the simplicity of a church →
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Rural Soul: Origins in Orange. Guest blogger Sara Keeling returns
Sara Keeling, pastor of the Rappahannock Charge of the United Methodist Church, has a rural soul. Or so she told us in a previous guest outing on Heartlands. While I’m in Israel and Palestine, she agreed to share again. I really didn’t ask for all the kind words. They just came free! But read on →
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In Which I Tumble Out of the Tumble In and Head to Terlingua – A West Texas Adventure
The bright lights and hubbub of the big city (Archer City, that is – population ~1800) were starting to get to me, so I decided to head even further out into West Texas. Out to where the skies stretch out like God’s own Imax screen. Out to where coyotes howl at the setting sun and →
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A Reporter Comes to the Shore: My interview with Monica Hesse – part 1 of 3
Monica Hesse, an author and reporter for the Washington Post, came to the Shore to write a book about the spate of arsons that took place on the Eastern Shore between 2012 and 2013. That resulted in the bestselling book, American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land, which I recently reviewed on Heartlands. Monica agreed →
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What I Learned From a Day with Emmett Till
In the video, Johnny B. Thomas, mayor of Glendora, Mississippi, looks out over Black Bayou. This is where the body of Emmett Till was dumped following his brutalization and murder in 1955. In a voiceover, Thomas says, in effect, “Things haven’t changed here. A lot of the problems that were here then are here now.” →
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