Exploring the Third Season of Life

Notes from Vanaprastha

Reflections on Faith, Nature, and Writing

Recent Posts

All Saints Sunday

All Saints Sunday

Yesterday, All Saints Sunday, we walked into the crowded sanctuary at Bethany Lutheran Church in Waynesboro, Virginia. The screen above the pulpit displayed a slideshow of names: church members from the past 200 years who had gone before us: infants, some with only...

Callings

Callings

Magazines had piled up: three weeks of New Yorkers, The Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic, The New York Review of Books, Writer’s Chronicle, Smithsonian, Creative Nonfiction, Poets & Writers, and a few education periodicals. I also had several unread...

The Best Yes

The Best Yes

As Keith and I walked to the church parking lot after Bible Study last Sunday, I heard a ding and checked my cell phone. “On our way to Gettysburg then Shenandoah Valley. Will txt when one hour away. Beautiful day!” I texted my long-time friend who I hadn’t seen in...

Theme with Variations

Theme with Variations

Every year at Vanaprastha, autumn creeps down the Blue Ridge Mountains into the Rockfish Valley. Typically, some trees’ leaves change ahead of the curve. In the case of the maple in back of our house, part of the tree got a head start. Nature’s seasons are like a...

Roaring Brooks

Roaring Brooks

Freya darted ahead while Heathcliff walked on-leash with me down the stone trail from the house to the driveway. It was late afternoon last Tuesday, and we’d had a tremendous storm. I heard a roar. We followed the sound down the hill to the bottom of the ravine....