Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life those the art of living well.” - Aristotle I...

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? - Mary Oliver, The Summer Day Most mor...

A few weeks ago I headed up to New Jersey to attend a book fair, part of the wondrous new sensation of calling myself a writer. I spent the night in New Bru...

This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of cour...

Sixteen years ago we made the move from Minneapolis to Virginia. Lynn and I flew out for a few days in early December to find a place to live and, as best w...

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” - Martin Luther King I live in Northern Virginia, which, for the most part, is more nor...

In February, when much of the world digs out from snow or splashes through dirty gray sludge, the Bay Area sparkles. On most mornings the sun dawns brightly...

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings -The Lake Isle of Innisfr...

In an election season that has spoken to our worst instincts rather than our highest aspirations, it’s been a struggle to conclude that kindness still has a ...

I wanted him to love the game as much as I do, so we started when he was very young. When he was three he had a plastic bat and ball, and he would knock the...

Lucas bounded into our lives several years ago, an eight-week old puppy with one floppy ear, the fluffiest tail I had ever seen, and a heart filled with wond...

Outside my apartment early this morning, well before sunrise, a homeless man was staggering about. He woke me first with his anger, a profane ranting that b...

On March 4th we lost Pat Conroy, and on that day the world became a bit duller, a bit less expressive. I thought he’d have more time. All his life Pat see...

My father never told me how to live. Instead, he led his own life, and let me watch it. From him I learned loyalty, integrity, responsibility, and gentleness...

The great Irish poet Patrick Kavanaugh once commented, “One feels the impertinence of writing ‘I’ this or that as if we thought ourselves important. A man h...

As we get older, it can become ever more difficult to strip away the complications we build for ourselves, and to shed the complexities we tell ourselves are...

As we get older, it seems the winters become more bitter. Winds blow harder, temperatures dip lower, and the sun makes fewer and fewer appearances. Tired b...