12/9/2021

This year we desperately need a season of Epiphany. Often highlighting the visit of the magi and marked with the packing up of Christmas decorations until next year, a continual gaze on the Light of the World would do us some good. We continue to be deep in the COVID-19 pandemic, forced to learn the Greek alphabet with exasperation. Our churches are fully virtual or in person, hybrid gatherings, or not meeting at all. We wonder if the familiar comforts of Christian worship will ever be the same. Our political and social spheres grow more and more divided. Many cannot catch a moment, a breath even, as they navigate the challenges of everyday life.We need a season to uncover who Christ was/is and who we are/can be.

11/17/2021

In a few weeks, our family will welcome back home our eldest son after the first semester in college. Being 2000 miles away from home, our son, as with any college student, has said he looks forward to seeing his room, lying on his bed, seeing the neighborhood, the smells and tastes of our home cooking, the welcome of the wagging tail of our dog greeting him at the door, and, yes, even the jokes and jibes of his younger brother. With his arrival in early December will be our traditional task of hauling the Christmas decorations from the storage to make the house – inside and out – look and feel more festive. In fact, as I write, our neighbors across the street are hard at work in planning and staging the outdoor light show that has become an expected display for our neighborhood and the throngs of cars, pedestrians, and visitors across north San Diego county to behold as a visible sign that Christmas has come, that hope is here, that the familiar still abides.

11/15/2021

11/10/2021

10/15/2021

10/11/2021

9/17/2021

9/14/2021

8/26/2021

8/23/2021

7/19/2021

Each morning I walk three miles, a mile and a half to the local Heine Brothers Coffee and then a mile and a half back home. The path curls out of the neighborhood onto Moser Road, where it crosses Chenoweth Run.

Some mornings the creek is only a trickle, the rippling water reflecting the sunlight, the flow barely audible above cars passing by. Other mornings the run is swollen with rain, dark, fast and angry. A bit further, the route leads into the woods. The sidewalk ends. Spiders cross the path. There are deer.

7/16/2021