“Writing,” Henri Nouwen wrote, “can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write.” …
Category: Creativity
Located between Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek is one of the region’s manmade (and woman-designed!) wonders: The Chapel of the Holy Cross. …
Out on the beach today, I saw an old guy sitting in a wheelchair, staring out at the surging ocean. The waves off Daytona Beach were crashing loudly just 50 feet out, but by the time they reached the wheels of his chair they were just harmless bubbles and foam. He sat there for some time, and I wondered what was going through his mind. Likely, he was wondering how it has all come to this – sitting in a …
As a writer, I am reminded of something I once heard the late Frank McCourt say at a lecture about writing “Angela’s Ashes”: “Nothing is significant until you make it significant.” …
The truth is, there’s just no way to see everything, which is why I find it so easy and rewarding to walk these same paths over and over. For it is never the same experience twice. The camera helps me to see and remember (and to share with others what I have seen), but mostly it has taught me to slow down, to focus, to pay attention to movement and color and light. More than anything, to light. …
(for the 100th anniversary of Mark Twain’s death, April 21, 1910) This poem recently won first place in the Big River Writing Contest sponsored by Chesterfield Arts and Stages St. Louis. The contest celebrates Mark Twain & the Missouri River Valley region. It is you, the spinner and weaver, we see big and brash and full of life a painter with the finest and sharpest of tools a splendid fool squatting like a tired but ever-watchful sentry on the corner …
Have you experienced moments where that sense of a “ghost” has haunted your mind, your experiences, your feelings of “I am not alone here?” Have you ever tied those moments to real or imagined ancestors? Or to those who lived in your house, worshipped in your church, walked down your street? …
The older I get, the more I think that is exactly my work and my call -- to stand still and learn to be astonished a little more often. For our lives and our work rushes by us and whirls around us at dizzying speeds, and when we don’t stop to pay attention and be mindful the world around us never comes fully into focus. …
Here’s the point of all this, really. If you don’t like the culture, make your own…or help others make their own. Instead of paying $50 or $100 bucks to see a megastar at your local arena, support or create your own small venues that put the spotlight on the gifted but lesser-known artists who may never find their way (or want to find their way) to top 40 radio, MTV or the Grammy Awards. …
We all have our ideas of how the world came into being. I liked to think God was having a good time when that first light was cast... …