The Welcome Table

I don’t understand how these little miracles happen. I have had some jaw-dropping right time/right place miracles, but more often the little ones—which I might miss if I weren’t committed to noticing them.A couple of months ago, I met a lovely redheaded woman—age 27—in the local gym’s hot tub. Her smile was magnificent. I thanked her for being a redhead, something I say to most redheads because there are too few of us and we need to appreciate one another. Somewhere in the conversation, I … [Read more...]

This is a guest post by my brother, Dell Blair.Beneath the haze of an induced coma a glimmer of awareness illuminates a single ray of reality penetrating the heavily medicated fog and compelling my eyelids to part. Through a filter of lashes and desiccated tears an image emerges more dreamlike than real with impressionistic strokes smeared and rippling across the panorama.There are shadows. There are lights. There is a woman with dark hair standing in the threshold of the doorway … [Read more...]

April 1, 1949: My dad is taking a shorthand class at BYU. His sister, Carolyn, appears at the class door asking him to come out. He hesitates because he's not yet finished with the assignment. She beckons more urgently. When he steps into the hall, she says, "Bobby, Daddy has died." They go to Santa Barbara, their hometown. My grandmother has been put on tranquilizers. Grandpa had died of a heart attack. Dad takes care of funeral details and late at night, goes to the mortuary, where he … [Read more...]

Several people have asked that I publish this poem, which I wrote as part of I am Jane. The poem is set up by Jane asking Elijah about all the talk she has been hearing of curses, Cain, Ham, etc. She says, "I've never felt cursed by God, only loved so deep, seemed my bones might melt." Elijah replies, "I feel, Sister Jane, that ours is...Not a curse but a gift t'us, The best path we could seek A place where God can lift us We kneel; our knees is weakAnd when one of us is … [Read more...]