Tradition is a fluid process, not a fixed point. And so it is that we put away the remnants of another Christmas past, burdened by our efforts to please both tradition and present reality. The one sure thing about family is that it changes. The bigger the family, the more rapid the change. Deaths, births, [...]

I’ve devoted a good chunk of the day, when I wasn’t doing laundry or last-minute shopping, to setting up a new blog. Meet Journally. It’s a blog of journal prompts for students in composition and creative writing classes, or for anyone I suppose who wants to keep a personal journal. I still have quite a [...]

The “Black Jesus” episode of Good Times is one of my most memorable childhood television experiences. It ranks right up there with the Pearl Harbor episode of The Waltons for TV that taught me something. The White Jesus on the wall is the same one that adorned every church I ever entered as a child. [...]

I was loading my car to head to my parents’ house for Christmas. I opened my door, and in walked a black and white kitten. He looked at me, he looked around, he went to the bedroom and hopped onto my comforter to take a nap. He was dirty and severely malnourished, but he was [...]

My Facebook feed has had an odd serendipity today, yielding a wonderful article about what the Saints mean to New Orleans and a report that places Mississippi in the top ten happiest states in the country. In my mind, the two go hand in hand. We been down so long, it looks like up to [...]