A bright, arresting light
   shone from the Christmas star;
one star so bright that wise
   men saw it from afar,

And shepherds in their fields
   also saw it shining,
accompanied by lyrics
   a heavenly choir singing.

One light was born that night,
  ...

The Christ is coming
and the palm tree
dresses itself in pine and holly
the porous stem
providing a loamy home
for seeds to nest and rest
and then burst forth
in new growth
a divine symbiosis
...

I am going to ask you a question that I found revealing.  If given a choice between Psalm 42 or 43, to which psalm do you gravitate?  Both psalms end with the same words:  Why, my soul, are you downcast?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet...

I read the word twice in one day
in a novel and in the newspaper
of all places
Newspapers are supposed to use
third grade words
Here I am, elderly and still checking
the dictionary, unable to glean
from context what the writer
is trying to say.

And when I say I’m checking
a dictionary, of course, I...

A few weeks ago, we had a week full of grandparenting.  First, I went down to our son’s home to watch his girls for two nights while Court and Kimberly took a trip to visit friends.  When I returned home, Dave and I had a sleepover with the Barnes boys while Ben worked in Chicago...

We wanted to take our adult children and their spouses to Coronado for the opening night of my husband’s theatrical adaptation of Jane Eyre.  We made our plans back in the spring when the dates were first announced.  We then made reservations at the Hotel del Coronado. ...

In the mountains
where the nations come to observe magnitude
the shadows form crescents and curls
like wispy chalk drawings
as the moon moves across the sun

But don’t look! 
not without protection

How to spread joy for free?
Rule number one is be prepared

Have the eyes to see
and reach out...

A few years ago, when on another journey with our friends LB and David Norton, we talked about our bucket lists.  On David Norton’s was a trip to see the giant trees of California.  When we began to plan their visit here for my husband’s play, it occurred to me that this...

Please forgive another commercial message.

I just need to tell you that my daughter isn’t the only writer in the family with a project just “birthed”.  My husband David has written a play that is currently receiving its world premiere at Lamb’s Players Theatre in...

Finally!  Our daughter, Meredith Barnes’ second book launches this coming Tuesday! 

Meredith wrote and published her first devotional book, All the Time, during the pandemic.  That book sold well (thanks to many friends like you!), and it came to the attention of Paraclete...