In learning to play piano at the age of forty-one, I worked my fingers far enough into that uncanny dimension that all pianists know, regardless of their level of skill, where the hands, briefly, beyond all logic, start to behave more quickly than the mind that tries to read the notes or position the fingers. I had practiced enough weeks that I was ready to tackle my first piece of Bach, a minuet taken from a collection he created for... Read more

There is a day when the road neither comes or goes, and the way is not a way but a place. —Wendell Berry We drive to Bangor, take a right at the blinking yellow light, another right on Hastings Court and then down a dirt road to Blue Dog Greens. Twenty-eight acres of agreeable land tucked between the railroad tracks and Black River. Dennis and Genevieve live there, very simply, in order to tend this organic farm. It’s a sunny,... Read more

A thousand years ago, a colorful bird flew out of an ancient tree in Persia, just as a thoughtful boy opened his eyes. He never saw it lift, only sweep over him in flight. This is how he came to speak of God: as something lifting out of view, as something sweeping over us once we’re awake. Five hundred years ago, a young woman saw her father beheaded in one stroke by a desperate man leaning off a horse. She... Read more

Sorry. As soon as I talk about it, it moves out of view. Let me try again. There is a teacher, a teaching, a moment that keeps working me. I became aware of it four years ago when I met several burn survivors; heroic individuals whose faces have been removed, whose limbs have been disfigured. They have nowhere to hide. Inside is outside for them. I could see their beauty, each like a lantern broken by the storm; their flicker... Read more