Stuff in the Basement

  It's a kind of anxiety, I suppose, something akin to unease. What is visible on the faces of these mothers and children is their troub...

Rudolph Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz, got to thinking that Theodor Eicke, at a place called Dachau, had a stroke of genius when he deci...

I'd like to think that just about everyone has read the stories--and seen the pictures. They're perfectly awful, of course, but just...

“I remembered you, O God, and I groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint.” Psalm 77:3 There are times in church when I nearl...

This poem showed up on my screen a week or so ago, courtesy of  Writers' Almanac. It brought to mind the forty-year-old essay that appea...

  In winter the beach is desolate from the sharp grass of the sand cliffs to the hem of ice chunks the lake wears until March. The sand runs...

"Seagulls and Sovereignity" is 40 years old, written when we lived in Oostburg, Wisconsin, while I was in graduate school and Barb...

When I think back to it, I'm a little surprised that I don't remember a time in my life when there was no television. I remember wha...

What poetry, even King David's, is good for is the bracing and blessed reminder that even in our darkest moments we're not as alone ...

“Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous. . .” Psalm 32:11 All day, an intermittent screech would come crashing through the open base...

  This shot, from 2012, west of Hawarden, is yet another variation on theme. What's up the hill here is more than a solitary tree--there...