What Would Thoreau Say?

My father was 80 before he told me he loved me.   From German stock, steeped in a stoic view of emotional displays, he just didn’t say it.   Ever.   Until he got sick and I was taking care of him, traveling from Atlanta to Blue Ridge where he lived on a mountain in a log cabin.   One day, sitting there trying to figure out something else to say to keep the conversation going he just up and said, ‘I love you and your brother buddy.   Proud of you.’ He always added the proud of you part after that. I never doubted he loved me.   He just never said it until then.  Not sure if the illness and view of the 'end' made a difference. When my kids were born I don’t remember making a decision to say I love you to them regularly.   I didn’t do the ‘my father didn’t do it so I will thing,’ rather I just did it.   So did my ex-wife.   We said I love you all the time.   Still do actually.   When my kids and I text or talk we always ...

My son and I have an old fashioned father-son relationship in many ways.  None more so than through our mutual love of baseball.  We actually could be a Normal Rockwell painting if Norman Rockwell was still around to paint.  Through everything--and there have been things, of course--Kurt and I have baseball, the great conversation starter, and conflict-fixer. He is a fanatic Yankee fan.  I'm not talking  big fan, or really big fan, I'm talking fanatic.  As a child he cried when the Yankees lost a meaningless game to the Toronto Blue Jays in April.  As an adult he cries when the Yankees lose a meaningless game to the Toronto Blue Jays in April. I hate the Yankees, of course, because I grew up in the W O Y period in New York.  Not sure what W O Y means?  It means, We Own You, and by we I mean New York baseball, by you I mean everybody else, every other city with a baseball team.  The Giants, Dodgers and Yankees owned baseball in the 50...

For the six or seven months I have been running around northern Virginia trying to establish a soup kitchen I have had, truly, an excellent adventure.  Not only have I met some unbelievably wonderful people, but I have worshipped, preached, listened to and been part of worship services in every conceivable tradition except Zoroastrianism... that may be next. This morning, as I sat waiting for the iced in Pastor of the Methodist Church here in Leesburg, I thought about this adventure and smiled.  Here I was sitting in a traditional Protestant parlor next to a beautiful sanctuary.  It was appointed in 'early American Church' with mismatched chairs the somewhat cheesy bust of Jesus across the room from the beautiful print called A Day in Sleepy Hollow (a place I know well) and the comforting rack of Bibles next to a small library of Christian classics. I felt so at home here at Leesburg United Methodist Church though I had never worshipped here, never worshipped at any M...