There is relief and remorse equally in my heart as the growing season comes to a close.

We could see the main path to the swimming hole ahead, but we had to pick our way through sand spurs to get there. Behind us were rattlesnakes. What did the youth do? They started playing.

People move places for jobs, relations, opportunities, escape, hindering our ability to put down new roots. And yet, we carry a constancy: the still, quiet voice within.

I know deep in my spirit that I am held by the Mystery; part of the Mystery and witness to it; an agent of stardust whose perception of the world might not be all that there is to see.

Liking somebody, even loving somebody, is not enough to protect them from shade that you cannot even see, much less understand.

Pray, if you pray. Send love and money, too. We will be rolled and covered, but we will rise and carry others with us. Watch for the opportunities to rise and carry. Watch for the holy moments where some people see God.

Light We Seek, wherever I am on the journey toward wholeness for all of us—that is, toward racial equality—help me to forgive myself and others for missteps and missed opportunities, and guide my efforts to build up the relationships where love, justice, and understanding grow.

“We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through.” — Author unknown Standing roadside, stranded, watching thousands of dollars rise in the smoke coming from under the hood, it’s easier to fight about who forgot to put oil in the car than to...

“Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we kept fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness.” —John Updike, “Tuesday, and After,” The New Yorker, September 24, 2001 We sat on the back steps watching transfixed as hundreds of rust-red spiders, big as thumbs, dropped...

“Did that man just strap a gun to his belt?” My 10-year-old squinted, looking across the parking lot of the grocery co-op. I had seen it, too: a middle-aged white man had stepped out of his pick-up truck, taken out a black holster, and strapped it on, pulling his shirt down over it. “I think...

It took me 37 years to recognize that I had been cloistered off from the beauty, the richness, and the heartbreaking complexity of other people’s experiences.