Recent Columns

There is an art to doing Nothing. You can’t really try to do Nothing. The very act of trying means you’ll do a rotten job on it all. This is one of the reasons I love Hannah. Because of all the book characters that she could have been today, she chose Winnie the Pooh, the […]

The birds have hatched. I saw them during my morning elliptical routine in the music room. At first, the nest that’s just outside the room’s window seemed both empty and rundown, like Ma hadn’t made the bed for a couple of days. I thought she was gone for good to find a more suitable birthing […]

Your child’s name, of course, is very important and I’d suggest that Zeus or Apollo are fine choices for any boy, and Jezebel is not a bad option for the girls. If you have twins, you should also consider names that are complementary. Something like Ping and Pong, for example, could work quite well and give […]

In light of numerous thefts from our place in recent weeks, the pressure has been on for us to get a dog. Instead, I got a bird. This, as Faithful Reader knows, is in addition to the cat, that is THE CAT – the playboy cat who, by the way has been seen only once […]

We should never question the truth of what we fail to understand, for the world is filled with wonders. I’ve heard this. And I, with many others, very much believe this. But the truth of death still seems so much louder, so much more distinct, so much more undeniable than the wonder of what even those […]

(The Hamilton Spectator - Friday, January 25, 2013) ARUSHA, TANSANIA ✦ Edward should be fired. I can't trust Alice. And our piano and laptop won’t resurface any more than anyone will know what happened to that $13 million. This is how it’s going around here. Not right here, actually. I’m on business one country over, just southeast from my home in Uganda. At the moment I’m drinking a cider of sorts, what the gentleman beside me called 'rotten apples,' a pretty good name, I think, for my recent experiences.

Unlike Maple Crest, where I started my school career as a very blonde and very skinny boy, the middle school I attended, Burleigh Hill, is still standing. During the two years I attended Burleigh Hill, I would go from my house along roads like Townline and Rowntree, past the Stop and Go corner store to […]

Speaking about the nature of God, my students will forgive me for inviting you into a recent class. And so will Jon. My class consists of a small number of Americans who meet in my Ugandan living room once a week to learn what they can about creative writing. They get their formal credit from […]

We were talking about God – is God a ‘He?’ is God a ‘She?’ is God ‘Something Else?’ – and we all had views on this night at the campus home of these university friends with all these other friends, while our kids, the whole brood and mix of them, were in another room watching a […]

We’re at the supper table with tacos and raw carrots and mom is not around and Jon looks at Liz and asks me if it’s possible for her to have a baby. ‘No,’ I said. This was my mistake. I should have just asked for more food or let out a good belch before pushing […]

So I’m in front of Liz’s class – I think there were three classes put together actually – and we’re talking about the media and the hands are going up, up, up. One after another, the kids tell me about this story and that one. Fires in Australia – that’s the one Liz recently “reported” […]

We got home late but it wasn’t a school night so the children wanted to watch The Brady Bunch. Season 1 was a Christmas gift, one that follows last year’s main DVD take of The Flintstones. We have no television in our Ugandan home, so DVDs — some of which you can find here on […]

Of all the myths of parenthood, one of the biggest has to be that children can make you happy and fulfilled. This, from Leslie Leyland Fields, author of ‘Parenting Is Your Highest Calling (and 8 other myths that trap us in worry and guilt.)’ The title should give any parent some pause and relief. As […]

‘Daddy, Daddy!’ Liz could barely contain herself. I was reading. She was going up on her tip-toes, up and down, excited, reaching forward and touching me on the arms and Daddy, Daddy! She could get four earrings and two bracelets for 5,000 shillings. That’s about two dollars. The lady was selling all sorts of things, […]

I’m on the elliptical at the club and the news clip shows a bloody and ugly scene from yet another suicide bomber from one of those places that is and isn’t so far away. And there’s a man who stands out from the crowd, who somehow looks toward the camera, a bearded and rotund man […]