offering

“Let’s see it,” I said the day after my student got his first tattoo. It was a nice grisly tattoo, suggesting to the viewer that death was not to be feared, though when I looked at it, lo, I felt fearful. “It hurt right here,” he said. “This part didn’t hurt. Look how it’s shaded.” […]

the time of the season

January 6th always meant moving our Three Kings into our nativity scene. It meant sermons about how Jesus was for everyone, not just the people in that part of the world. (I would currently state that Christ is for everyone, though many people see Christ in trees, the Buddha, and their dogs.) I was pretty […]

unhistoric acts

My dad goes in for a memory test. He thinks he didn’t do well. I could hold this test down and punch it until it passed out, gushing blood from its nose, and sorry. Our identity, mine, my mom’s, my dad’s, rests on being the smart one, the clever one, the one who goes faster, […]

the sun with eyes closed

My dad said, “Your car looks great!” My dad cares about cars being clean, and in my middle age, I have begun to care, as well. The previous week I had crowned my Friday work day with a trip to the car wash, where I sat and imagined the spouts and flaps were monsters with […]