300 words a day

Last week, I wrote about a prayer assignment I’m creating for a class I’m teaching. I wrote about public prayer in “God. We Need You.”: A Year of Prayer in a Hospital Chapel +++ When I started as a hospital chaplain, I didn’t write out my prayers. I’m from a tradition that is more spontaneous. […]

More from Rich Dixon: +++ My conversation with Carbondale athletes wasn’t really about sports. “How do you know if you won a game?” They pointed at the scoreboard. “Who knows which team won?” They hesitated. Finally, someone replied, “Everyone. Read the score.” “Of course. Everyone knows. Now, a tougher one. “How do you know if […]

I don’t do fine wood-working. I do functional wood-working. And on my birthday, I built the simple shelf I needed for piles of papers. Since I’m a piler. The upright is from a player piano that was hauled out of the basement of a house down the street. In pieces. The top shelf is from […]

When I was a kid, people retired at 65. Their companies walked them to the door, with some parting gift. And then, so the myth goes, they went golfing. Except for my maternal grandfather, who kept working on the small farm where he’d lived after immigrating from Sweden when he was eleven. He kept working […]

God. I think we are all like Paul some days. What we want to do, we don’t do. What we don’t want to do, we do. I know, God, that Paul wasn’t talking about fitness goals or writing goals. He wasn’t talking about mid-year resolutions. He was talking about doing good and doing bad. “I […]