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What the Trail Requires: The Mantario
For the past couple years I’ve heard stories about the Mantario Hiking Trail from friends who’d hiked and run it. At about 63km (40 miles) long, it’s not to be taken lightly. The trail was created in 1970s (though I wonder at its prior history), and traces a north-south path through the Mantario Wilderness Zone,…
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The Foot’s Silver Prayer
When Annie Dillard wrote about the man who kept a daily journal about the clouds, I thought the idea ridiculous. Who would document something as mundane as clouds? Most of us think clouds as boring as the paint on our walls, simply, unremarkably, there. But would this documentarian of the sky have disagreed? Today marks…
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Secret Paths of Steinbach
When I was a kid, I was enthralled by secret portals into other worlds. Books like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Secret Garden captured my young imagination. What if I could crawl into a tunnel, a cave, or an ordinary wardrobe, and enter into a secret mystical world? I imagined carving a…
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We Will Rise
Last night I made bread. As I was lining up to take a photo of my glorious creation, my nearly-three-year-old said with disbelief, “You’re taking a picture of the bread?!? Bread can’t say “cheese”… I’ll say “cheese” for it!” And she did. But as my little helper and I baked, I thought about the time…
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The Peace of Wild Things
In this week of stress and uncertainty, my morning ritual has been essential. Leaving the house, weaving down familiar trails under the vast dawn sky, this poem by Wendell Berry has surfaced day after day. The Peace of Wild Thingsby Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the…
