A child spends a sunny, summer day in the park. She runs and jumps, climbs trees, makes up games, forgets them, and makes new ones. She pokes and prods in the dirt, exploring, finding ants amidst the grass. And she spins, and spins, and spins, whirling and laughing, her face brighter even than the mid-day … Continue reading “The Miracle of Darkness”

The giant neotropical toad or cane toad is a decently large type of toad about five or so inches around. It’s poisonous, but not in any of the most worrisome sorts of ways. You’re fine as long as you don’t eat or lick one. Like pretty much all toads and frogs it eats insects, and … Continue reading “By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them”

In the tradition of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy – more commonly known among white people as the Iroquois – there is a practice sometimes called the Thanksgiving Address, or the Greetings and Thanks to the Natural World, but it is most literally and accurately called, “The Words That Come Before All Else.” It is a litany … Continue reading We Send Our Greetings and Our Thanks

On the 28th of June, 1914, the city of Sarajevo in Eastern Europe, which is today the capital of the nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was, at the time, the capital of a province of the same name within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In late June of that year it was the site of a royal … Continue reading The War to End All Wars

The story goes that once there was a king who ruled in a certain country, and like most kings – and indeed, like most of the highest leaders in most places and times – he was exceedingly wealthy, although many of his subjects had almost nothing to live on at all. Each night, his table … Continue reading The Sense of Our Small Effort

Some years ago, when I was a student in college during the previous millennium, I was in a class discussing a particular work of English literature. And midway through the discussion, which I can no longer remember any other part of, one of my fellow students startled our professor and the rest of us into … Continue reading Everything That Happened, Happened

In 1805, the French poet Emile Deschamps was only a young boy when his neighbor – an older gentleman named M. de Fortgibu – returned from a trip to England. He’d brought back with him an English treat called plum pudding – a dessert that’s quite popular in England, but about as unusual to find … Continue reading Against All Odds

[Begin by singing: “Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen…”] That song comes to us this morning from the African American Spiritual canon, which means that it has its origins in the Black Church and the struggle to survive and make meaning amidst the horrors of slavery. So it is a collective creation – it has no … Continue reading The Amen Break