Signs & Wonders
Once upon a time, I lived on a farm in the mountains of western North Carolina. I had a garden...of sorts. The tomato vines were attacked by some pest or plague and produced exactly one tomato (which, after calculating the cost of the plants, frames, lime, and fertiliizer, was worth about $26). The only things that thrived were my raspberry bushes. I returned home one afternoon, however, to find the goat happily chomping on the last remnant of them. "I can’t grow anything," I said out loud to myself. Then I walked inside and discovered two toadstools growing in the bathroom.
It was damp in western North Carolina. If mildew were a cash crop, I would have been rich the three years I lived there. But abundance came to me in other forms. Friendship. Grace. Hospitality. I rediscovered things I had lost sight of in my last years living with Sojourners Community: the blessings of extended meals and late-into-the-night conversation with friends; the expectant unfolding of the seasons; the mysteries of nature’s bounty.
My closest companion was Savannah, a golden retriever I invited in when I knew I wouldn’t be returning to Sojourners. As I was letting go of a way of life that had spanned 15 years, and was sorely in need of some unconditional love, Savannah arrived with all the grand exuberance and abundant affection of a 7-week-old puppy. She reintroduced me to delight. She lavished me with "gifts" she found and reveled in every day and season, bounding joyfully with equal grace through deep snowdrifts or a pasture bursting with bright yellow buttercups.
"From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view....This is from God, who...has given us the ministry of reconciliation."— 2 Corinthians 5:16, 18
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under...
Four water cannons. Two vicious dogs. Six armored personnel carriers. A score of police.
I live encircled by an eruv—though for weeks it was invisible to my eyes. I would not have known what I was seeing, had I noticed it.
Wesley Woods is a United Methodist retirement high-rise in my Atlanta neighborhood.
It may be the most creative thing that’s ever happened in Woodruff Park in downtown Atlanta.
It may be the most creative thing that’s ever happened in Woodruff Park in downtown Atlanta.
She lays her smooth head in her mother's lap. Then she folds her long leg-long for a 9-year-old-under herself, hiding the pink satin ballet slipper on her foot.
I did not expect a great blue heron to visit my neighborhood in northeast Atlanta.
On May 12, 1982, Thony Green woke about dawn to put on the coffee at the Open Door Community in Atlanta.
The assistant district attorney cleared the courtroom, while two sheriff's deputies searched the defendant. He was known to own 13 guns.
'Yesterday, it was like fire on glass," says Mary Etta of the sunrise we missed. We had missed them all.
There are many callings. Some people teach. Some people write. Some people sing operas, and some train dogs.