a poem i love. which, i think, could also be appropriately titled, how to be alive.

How To Be a Poet

by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your poems,

doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.

more photos of the street boys in nairobi.

You who are God’s servants are living in a foreign country, for your own city-state is far away from this city-state. Knowing which is yours, why do you acquire fields, costly furnishings, buildings, and frail dwellings here? Anyone who acquired things for himself in this city cannot expect to find the way home to his own City. Do you not realize that all these things here do not belong to you, that they are under a power alien to your nature? The ruler will say you do not obey my laws, either observe my laws or get out of my country, Take care lest it prove fatal to you to repudiate your own laws. Acquire no more here than what is absolutely necessary. Instead of fields, buy for yourselves people in distress in accordance with your means.

-Hermas, 140 AD

remember that time sam went to college?

this is when sam drives.

when sam pretends to be a lazy hippie.

when i take a gratuitous self portrait.

when sam makes her crazyface.

when sam pretends to be literate.

when sam is pretty.

when dad is displeased.

when mom is happy.

when sam tries to electrocute the baby.

hannah at dinner. (sam and hannah have known each other since they were tiny babies in memphis.)

papaw. (papaw was our next-door neighbor/grandfather growing up.)

taylorday. (a friend ive known since i was about two.)

mother and daughter. (laura and layla at dinner.)

sam and hannah.

lesotho, part 3

john stokes the coal fire one evening when the temperature drops below freezing.

therron reads and reflects on a sunday morning before church.


the guys have a ton of time for reading. it is like a winter sabbatical, surrounded by beauty and the company of good thinkers.


john plays football with some of the village children before church.


john holds a young girl as they wait for her parents to get home.

lesotho, part 2

i think this is my favorite image from this coverage. therron shows a young girl how to blow a dandelion.

john and therron work in the corn fields with a local pastor.

john throws an ear of corn into the harvest pile.

john plays with a little boy, swinging him around in circles, before church on a sunday morning.

john and therron spend some time talking to a man on their way home from visiting shepherds at the top of the mountain.

lesotho, part 1

while i was in lesotho a couple months ago (difficult to believe it was a that long ago), we met three men serving as "winter missionaries" serving in a remote area of the kingdom.

john, drew and therron spent their summer living in a village in the mountains. they went with a commission: "be jesus in that place."

no electricity, no running water and very cold nights. they spent their days working in the fields with the men, playing with children from the village, helping build gardens. at night drank tea and hot chocolate, reading the saints by candlelight: merton and tozer and lewis and all of the rest.

the guys lived in the small house next to the local baptist church.

drew, wrapped in a sleeping bag and several blankets, sleeps on the floor of the small shack. on sunday mornings, the guys sleep in, reading and enjoying some down time before church.

the guys share morning coffee and reading on a very cold sunday morning.


the guys hike up a mountain early one morning to spend time with the shepherds who stay there.


drew and john make their way back down the mountain

more tomorrow. (maybe.)