Rev. Dr. Jeff Garrison
My eyes have feasted on a beautiful colored landscape for the past month. Slowly the trees turned color. But with last week’s heavy frost, the trees are now mostly brown or their leaves have fallen to the earth, to rot into the soil and nourish another season. I thought I would share some of my … Read more Saying Goodbye to Color
Richard Lischer, Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery (NY: Random House, 2001), 242 pages, no illustrations. A delightful collection of essays that describes Lischer’s first three years as a pastor in Southern Illinois, just east of St. Louis, Missouri. He arrives driving a Ford Pinto. Fresh out of school, he finds his church in … Read more Two Books: Poetry and Ministry
The Day before the Equinox Despite the threat of rain on the last day of summerI take an evening walk down Laurel Fork Roadnoticing the seasonal changes.along the edge of the hayfieldwhere the staghorn sumac and dogwoods have turned red. The green leaves of the maples and oaks in the forest beyond have already lost … Read more A Walk in the Rain
I am spending the next two weeks in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I’m staying in DeTour, which is at the far eastern end of the UP’s mainland. It’s where you catch the ferry from Drummond Island. I have a wonderful view of the St. Mary’s River, where the freighters make their way from the … Read more Saying Goodbye and Time Away
For some reason, this post didn’t make it over from the transfer from my old thepulpitandthepen.com blog. So I decided to “resurrect” it and add a few photos of the river from which this journey begins. Resurrection There is a section in the Hastings Cemetery in Michigan where children who died during or before birth … Read more Resurrection: A Poem
David Lee, Mine Tailings (Boulder, UT: Five Sisters Press, 2019), 79 pages. David Lee was formerly the poet laurate of Utah and has been affectionally referred to as “the Pig Poet.” About the time I was leaving Utah, Lee retired as head of the English Department for Southern Utah University. Ever since I left … Read more Three Collections of Poems