Living on Borrowed Time (January 1991) – Jackie

Posted on Leave a comment

Living on Borrowed Time (January 1991) – Jackie and I spent a week in our little cabin in western North Carolina in October. One rainy morning we got up to drive across the mountains to meet friends for lunch. Coasting slowly down the steep wet driveway, I heard an inner voice. “This could be your last trip. you could be killed on that slick mountain highway.”…

Download PDF

Quiet Time (April 1991) – Every year for

Posted on Leave a comment

Quiet Time (April 1991) – Every year for the past 15 years, a group of us — dressed in old clothes, carrying shotguns, rifles and sleeping bags — have gathered in a little hunting cabin deep in the swamps of South Florida. We come from different towns and states. Each year we add or subtract someone, but the core group had remained the same. The four days are spent in the woods southwest of Lake Okeechobee on the edge of the Florida Everglades — 30 miles from the nearest phone…

Download PDF

Mother’s Prayer Book (May 1991)

Posted on

Mother’s Prayer Book (May 1991) – Several years after my father’s death, I had the heart-warming task of moving my mother into a Baptist retirement center in Florida. My father had donated the property to the center before he died. Dad never got to live there, but Mom stuck to the plan. She moved only a few things with her, urging us children to divide up the rest…

Download PDF

Wrestling With God (July 1991) – One of

Posted on Leave a comment

Wrestling With God (July 1991) – One of the modern Greek playwrights wrote of the novice who went to stay on an island with an elderly priest. One afternoon the young cleric, eager to learn, walked with the venerable man along the craggy shore. As their robes swirled in the wind, he finally asked the big question. “Father, do you still wrestle with the devil?”…

Download PDF

What is Masculinity? (October 1991) – The new

Posted on Leave a comment

What is Masculinity? (October 1991) – The new emphasis on men, while encouraging, is not all good. Poet Robert Bly’s book Iron John stayed on the best-seller list 30 weeks this year. Bly has been the one to inspire many men to head off into the woods on weekends, where they stand around campfires, pounding on their chests like gorillas and uttering primordial screams in an effort to regain their lost masculinity…

Download PDF