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Named and Naming
With university student pliability they rolled out of the van. They’d come for a week of conversation with valley ranchers, spiritual guides, farmers, and Tribal politicians. Our work today was to talk about the valley’s history, politics, religion, spirit, hurt, joy and their landscape intersections. The morning was cool but not cold. Just after sunrise. We met at the…
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Quiet Talk
Three of them sat around the afternoon fire talking. Sometime ago he had taken a thirty-six-inch tractor rim and set it in the ground. As the two of them talked he watched the fire. Noticing that as the rim heated, the ground around it melted, softened, and turned to mud. They’re talkers. But he knew that. There were times when these…
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Sensible Theology
Theologians have long worked to develop theology to explain the unexplainable. A few have done reasonable work and made it accessible. Yet to do so is getting harder. In part, because we are losing our grounded-ness. When were we last able to describe the taste of our home place dirt? At work? At the playground? Where I practice my religion? Where I walk? As…
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Winter Settles
When winter arrives, as it has, place settles. Quiet no longer moves across the landscape. Quiet is. Over the years a path has been worn between the house and the winter water trough. It is walked many times during the summer. During the winter though, I walk it often. Winter water is always work. Good work. But when cold settles and…
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Fog
Fog defines this week. In the morning it lies heavy upon the ground. Close and overbearing, you cannot see the barn as you set out to feed. Some afternoons the fog lightens. Wispy and whispering strands lay across the ridge. One afternoon, a strand of fog slipped east along the ridge just above a horse trail where half a…
Chewing the Cud 