The Splintered Tree Years ago, after a storm in the mountains, I walked through the damp, needle-strewn soil and saw the damage that had been exacted by the lightning the night before. I saw a tree blasted apart and immediately thought of an aspect of my life. ...
I received my first award for writing in grade school, for an essay about fire prevention. (Made me scared to death of open flames for years, but that's another story.) When I was in high school, one of my teachers entered my poetry into some state-wide contests,...
Is There a Southern Gentleman Holy Spirit? When I was a baby Christian, I tried to make sense of the Trinity. I was newly washed from Mormonism, where its theology neatly packaged each member of its godhead into a separate body. Easy peasy. Compartments, check,...
For literary geeks only: This is a chapter from the novel I am currently writing. It includes an ancient literary technique called chiasmus. The structure begins with, “I will tell you what helped me,” and the middle or turning point is “For a...
The Raw Beginnings in the Gospel of Mark Though I’ve read through the Gospel of Mark at least 40 times (and in three languages), this time reading the first two chapters struck me in a new way, with its rawness, its almost-violent use of language. There...
