I Am Not Hamlet

Today was Creation Sunday at our humble church in sunny, suburban Livonia. What is that? Simply, a day of worship focusing our gratitude for God's great gift of creation that enables us to breathe, drink, eat, and do many other things that corporeal beings do so well. It is a day of deliberation to think about sharing these gifts and stewarding them for generations to come. This is no reaction to the times--this is the Gospel--part of it, anyway, that far too many evangelicals have ignored. Anyway, BK liked my invocational prayer I composed so I post it here (my blog which links to FaceBook) for your kindly critiques. I'm still not happy with it, but I'm just so frickin' picky when I write. Can you find where I stole from Ray Bradbury and Gerard Manley Hopkins? Father, Maker of the Universe, What can we offer that compares with the extravagant gifts of air, soil, and water You so graciously bestowed upon your creatures? What picture can we paint that rivals your s...

Published in 1930 by a group of 12 Southern writers based in Vanderbilt College, I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition is a collection of essays issued as a stay against further industrialization of the South. Obviously they failed. In many respects the South is no different from any other region in the US. Regionalism has given way to a corporatized banality. The last bastion of yeoman farmers lost out to Detroit and other industrial powerhouses in the late 30s and 40s. At times racist and patronizing, bitter and nostalgic, prophetic and prescient, I'll Take My Stand desperately tries to convince the South to keep her identity, but to no avail. The essays offer no practical advice, merely polemic, but some of them...whew. What would the world be like if their ideas had prevailed? There is no way of knowing...at least not until the oil runs out. And that shouldn't happen for another 250 years--right?

Just because Labor Day is nearly finished does not mean that summer ends. The seasons follow no governmental dictate--summer has yet two weeks of life. Work begins again for me tomorrow and strangely I feel neither dread nor excitement; I'm not sure if that is a good thing or ill. The family biked half of the Paint Creek trail today and yesterday visited what may turn out to be the last Michigan State Fair. Overall, this was a wonderful summer for the Martins. Hikes in Washtenaw and Oakland counties, the children mastered bike riding, rock climbing in New Hampshire, touring Massachusetts, Virginia, and Fort Necessity in PA, camping at Wilderness State Park all added up to a full, fun vacation. Unfortunately, I didn't finish painting the exterior of the house (something I'm going to have to do this month). I also finished my classes for my Master Naturalist certification and am looking forward to a good honey harvest. If I can fit a fishing trip and weekend of camping ...

Here's a minor rewrite of a descriptive exercise. Thank you, Stacey. Cai He just as easily smiles as pouts when he doesn’t get his own way. Cai is a speedy ghost—his pale form and blond hair streak past you jumping, running, or clambering on his way to some activity be it riding his bike, practicing his fishing casts, or throwing rocks. The freckles smeared across his nose and under his grey eyes lead you to think he’s all summer’s child, yet he was born early in the morn of Christmas Eve. The clouds do roll in when he is frustrated or when he commiserates in empathy with your pain or misery. Then, like the blink of a firefly, as if the painful incident never happened, he’s off to growl with his dinosaurs or storm his castle. Like most boys he’s full of contrasts: his appetite balances swinging from glutton to a faster nearly everyday. Tears drop easily, too easily at times, but a few moments later the emotion disappears like a stone flung into a lake. He doesn’t like the s...