Wait, did that just happen? How is it the end of another year already?

2021 year started with hope and expectation. As we wrapped up 2020, the promise of a COVID vaccine provided a tantalizing vision of an end to the masks and social isolation...

We had just arrived in San Antonio, Texas, checked into our hotel and decided to walk around downtown. Our hotel was only a couple blocks from the Riverwalk and ...

On our New Year’s card, we suggested that 2019 was the year of love, loss and lament. It was also a year of unexpected wins and celebrations.

It’s August 28, in the evening, and Elsa and I are seated at a long table with 20+ people. We are dining on an outdoor platform that looks out to ...

The logs from the fire are popping and crackling as they pour heat and light into the room. Siena, our 13-year-old terrier, is curled up next to me, eyes closed, but always vigilant for the possibility of dropped food or an unwary intruder.

For some 4.5 billion years, the earth has been trekking in revolutions around the sun. Humans have only been participating for about 200,000 years. I personally have made the journey just 44 times. What are 44 trips to the earth’s billions?

If a person lives for a year, but doesn’t write anything down, has he really lived? At the risk of leaving 2013 undocumented, I think it’s time to put pen to paper, finger to keyboard, and make some mark of what this past year was all about.

At this time of year, as the days march with measured step toward the end of another calendar cycle, I naturally turn reflective and I marvel at all the small and large decisions, conversations, and actions that make up our lives.

This year, much like our cave adventure, felt like we were laying down new ground for ourselves, in search of something to touch our spirits, at the same time walking on a path that has been well worn by others before us. We are moving forward, but we can’t really see where we are going...

Each year seems to have its own character. Some years are like an old highway that meanders along familiar towns and then dumps you onto a superhighway lined with shopping malls as it moves toward the end of the year.

It’s nearly the end of the year. Elsa and I are at the kitchen table finishing off our holiday cards while a light snow falls outside the cabin windows. The trees are flocked and a fire burns in the wood stove. Leia, our beagle, is snoring gently in her bed while Siena, our rat terrier is curled up in my lap. It’s a perfect pastoral moment.

I am quite certain that I have experienced a collapse in the Space-Time continuum. Though I can look at the calendar and know that it is the middle of December, I am sure that yesterday was the beginning of November and the day before that was June 10. Somehow in the course of two days, six months have passed. I have memories of intervening days, but I am missing that sense of the passage of time....

Soft fluffy snow flakes are falling outside the cabin windows as I begin this letter. Orange tongues of flame lick at the logs inside the country wood stove sending a gentle heat out into the room where Elsa lies sleeping with Siena snuggled on her chest, and Leia is curled up in her beanbag snoring softly under two layers of blankets....

Like all good years, this one developed a theme. Not that the theme was planned, mind you. The theme just developed on its own accord, like the riff from a musical jam session that just keeps re-emerging. This year's theme was one of connection...