Weather Storytelling

One night in February 1998, with telecasts of the winter Olympics dominating the ratings, NBC’s Today show weatherman Al Roker walked onto the set of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He joined a sketch called “Nobody’s Watching.” True confessions, because nobody was...

Leaps

Happy February 29th! Because our calendar contains 365 whole days and our solar year is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 47 seconds, we add a day every four years to synchronize with the seasons. We make an additional tweak to our calendar at 100-year...

Boundaries Part I

“Thank you for taking time to visit with me again,” I said to Pastor Tim Bohlmann at Bethany Lutheran Church in Waynesboro, Virginia. We sat across from one another at a small table in his office. Light reflecting off the snow outside the windows cast the room in...

Devotion

After 9/11, writer Dani Shapiro, her husband journalist-turned-screenwriter Michael Maren and their young son Jacob moved from New York City to rural Connecticut. She tried to have another child, but suffered miscarriages, and now was in her forties. Jacob was...

Rules

One day at the Recovery Café, James raised his voice, disturbing others. This wasn’t his first incident. He was out of control and probably off his meds. “You have gotten yourself cut off from almost every place of support in this city,” one of the counselors said to...