Ten Things I Learned on my Sabbatical

There was a point on this trip where I had been gone long enough for the scales to fall off and was still far enough from our return that I could not see the end. That period was like flying and simply thinking about it still refreshes me to this day. After seven...

The Bus Stops Here?

If we aren’t careful, it is too easy to forget that there are people out there who either don’t have cars or can’t afford to use them. Don’t you hate sitting in traffic? Wasting time. Wasting fuel. And what about our roads? Traveling east-and-west in Fayetteville is...

Simplify

Ultimately, this issue found a solution. In the summer of 2012 we embarked on a seven-week sabbatical. It was a divine experience. And I can say that even after spending 8316 miles with my family in the mini-van. I’m in a jungle. It’s nighttime. All around me beady...

The Tiny Bathroom

As a child, if I had to choose, I would have said that I felt safer around Eddie than I did around my own grandfather. And he gave me a golf ball once. We are a family of white people. And we know that. On MLK Day we read stories to our children about civil rights. I...

Cleaning Closets

The loss of parents changes everything. Through the grief there comes a transformation, unsmiling and mostly forced. It truly is a new chapter. A new life. A new existence. Two weeks ago my father lay dying at St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa due to the progression of...