My wife and I are planning to make some improvements to our garden this year, and one of the things we’d like to do is plant a new miniature apple tree. We like planting trees. It’s fun to anticipate what a newly planted tree will become in the years ahead. But there’s the rub: “years ahead.” Because if you want to eat the fruit from a tree, you need to give it time. A lot of time. You need to let it grow, put down roots, and become part of the ordinary, everyday scenery. It’s only after you look out of the window for years at the same old tree that you start to be able to reap the full harvest of fruit and shade and beauty and all that a tree can be in its maturity. By that time, the tree is nothing like new. The initial excitement of planting eventually gives way to a more settled appreciation and enjoyment of the tree as a part of everyday life.
Continue reading The Same Old FacesTag: relationships
Two Powerful Skills You Already Have
Walking and eating are two of the most fundamentally basic human skills—the kind of things we learn in infancy. But I have found that walking and eating are also two of the most powerful contexts for experiencing human connection. What do we suggest when we want to see someone? More often than not, it involves eating at some point. Or walking. Or both.
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The Stars Still Shine In The Daytime
All night long we can see the stars shining down on us, but have you ever considered the fact that they also shine down on us all day? It’s not like they adjust the brightness of their burning to our sleep cycles. They shine on, always the same, always contributing something to our light. The big difference for us is just that one local star who comes around every morning and shines so brightly that the light of all the other billions of stars in the universe can’t compete at all.
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Don’t (Always) Be Efficient
I love it when a plan comes together smoothly. I love it when everyone works together and leans in and gets the job done—quick and clean. I love it when I can move swiftly through my own tasks for the day, ticking off to-do boxes with a satisfied smile. Efficiency is fantastic. Except when it isn’t.
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The Test // A Spoken Word Poem
There will always be the haters
The biters in the back
The baiters
The ones who only talk and never listen
And always know exactly what you’re missing Continue reading The Test // A Spoken Word Poem
I’m in your screen // a spoken word poem
Why Is Camping Fun?
Our family loves camping. As soon as we get home from one excursion, we start looking forward to the next. But why?
It’s tons of work.
The packing takes ages. There’s lots of specific (and bulky) equipment needed, and there are complicated logistics like cooking without a kitchen. Even with all the equipment, it’s still uncomfortable. Air mattresses are nice, but the nights are still cold, the walls are still thin, the showers and toilets are far away, and somehow the bugs seem to prefer being inside the tent to anywhere else in the world. I guess they don’t mind the fact that we all smell like the fire.
We have a good, warm house and comfortable beds. Why would we do this to ourselves?
My Education In Possum Holler
It was my mother’s dream to have a log house, and my father built her one in Possum Holler, in the rolling hills of northern Alabama. You’d have trouble finding that name on a map, but it’s the place I grew up alongside the peach and pecan trees my Dad planted in front of the house. I didn’t see very many Opossums there, but it was a Hollow in the mountains, so that fits. There was a lake as well, and a small cave to explore, and a sinkhole, and the forest on the mountain behind us was basically endless. I would certainly have gotten lost several times in those woods, if I hadn’t had our dog along to show me the way home. She always knew, and I learned to trust her, even when I thought she was wrong.
I Miss Talking To Strangers, Part 2
In last week’s post I lamented the growing number of areas where we are losing the opportunity to interact with humans. I called it “I miss talking to strangers” because I’ve started to realise that human interaction, even when brief, is a precious thing that helps us all remember who we are. When convenient machines rob me of that, the loss is real. I really do miss talking to strangers.
In the days following the post, your comments got me thinking further: what about the opportunities that remain? Yes, our culture is shifting from conversation to convenience, but as long as there are other people, interaction will continue on some level. Is it possible that even while I’m missing the old social ways of doing things, I could also be missing chances to speak to the humans around me? It is, and I do. Too often, I miss talking to strangers, not because of machines and screens, but because I simply forget to see them.
I Miss Talking To Strangers
I remember the first time our family got a touchscreen. It was an early GPS model (the kind you had to buy map updates for), but I was too young to drive, so what stood out to me was the touchscreen. I’d seen Star Trek, so I knew what to do. I just never guessed that I would live to see the day when McDonalds had more touchscreens than the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Screens for ordering, screens for keeping children entertained at the tables, screens for displaying menus, and don’t forget the personal communication devices everyone carries everywhere. Captain Kirk would be impressed.
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