Butterflies, Flowers, and Disillusionment

Last Saturday afternoon, on my way down the mountain to fetch the mail, I noticed a black swallowtail (Papilionidae) sipping nectar from cardinal flowers blooming on the slope beside the upper driveway. The bright red trumpet-shaped blossoms of lobelia cardinalis,...

Living Fear

“The only thing I do is live,” said forty-year old Mario Sepulveda. He was one of the 33 men trapped for 69 days in Chile’s San Jose Mine in the Atacama Desert back in 2010. From birth when his mother died, Sepulveda’s life had been marked by violence and struggle; he...

Prayer

In advance of Thanksgiving and Christmas, I decided to read Anne Lamott’s recently released book on faith: Help, Thanks, Wow. The title was a bit off-putting, smacking of Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love. (I had read that 70% of non-fiction book...

Stubbornness

Both of our dogs can be stubborn in their own ways. Even when afraid, Heathcliff tends to obey our commands and loves to go for walks. But sometimes when he sees other dogs, he growls, fusses, whines, pulls on his leash and breaks training in his excitement. Off leash...