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In Defense of the M.F.A., M.A., or Whatever
Only at the end of Cecilia Capuzzi Simon’s New York Times essay “Why Writers Love to Hate the M.F.A.” did the truth hit me. 2015 marks the thirtieth anniversary of my M.A. from the Writing Seminars at...
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Home Is When I Come to Rest
The wall of my Shenley Drive study A couple evenings ago, while walking our beloved gimp Watson to the end of Shenley Drive, wife Kathy and I counted the number of times I’ve moved since my sophomore...
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Marriage Along a Napper’s Way
With Baby Crash, watching a gray day out the den window . . . small house. Gray day. The air itself was wet. One intersection from Starbucks and my appointment with the writing table, wife Kathy’s...
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Miracle Milk, Miracle Mothers
Cole before his cold at a Mexican restaurant–looks like he is enjoying a mother’s milk buzz, sampling a tortilla chip, and watching out for the senoritas. What’s more pathetic than sick toddlers?...
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Burying Aunt Sue
I buried Aunt Sue yesterday morning. That’s what some pastors call funerals. We bury the dead, speaking the word with reverence. It was ashes a dozen or so family and friends commended to the earth....
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TBT: So . . . Was I Right about Iraq?
I’m often slow on the uptake. Facebook friends keep posting photographs with the comment “TBT.” What the hey? Since my policy is not to put much thought into cryptic messages, ignorance has enjoyed its...
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Clouds Over Peach Street Starbucks
Erie, Pennsylvania, 9:05 a.m. This June 8, 2015, is gray, drizzly, close, still. If I accomplish anything worthy, it will come from without–a descending muse, a cloudburst of grace. Clouds over Peach...
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Wanting to Write about the Martyrs of Charleston
Dear Napper’s Companions, Toward the end of May, kind and thoughtful Mary sent me an email that has stayed with me. I had posted a newspaper column I wrote over a decade ago about the prospect of the...
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Naps and Prayers in Ash
Church camp with forty-five teenagers and four fellow pastors is now a couple weeks in the rearview mirror. Every summer we spend six days together at Camp Lutherlyn (near Butler, Pennsylvania)...
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An Anniversary Letter to My Wife
Dear Kathy, Here we go again: Time to buy another used car. Life is strange and, as we figure out how to celebrate the thirty-two years that have been our wedded casserole, so different from what I...
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I’ll Find You, Art, in the Sunset Dance
Art and I had a routine. He poked his head into my office doorway, checking to see if the coast was clear—a few times a week since Doris passed nine years ago. “Thought I’d come in and bug you for a...
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I Contain Multitudes. Call Me “They.”
Hi, Jeff. First, I have to say that I’ve always admired your weirdness. Yes, you’re an odd one. To wit: dyeing your hair orange before going to a gathering with 30,000 teenagers. I could never pull off...
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An Unorthodox Peace
This past Sunday the church I serve, Abiding Hope Lutheran in Erie, Pennsylvania, held a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of our new church building, the foundation of which is already well...
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Lament for Aylan Kurdi
Sadness Alert! This post will be painful to read. He stood there biting his lower lip. “It is very difficult,” he said. “I cannot resign myself.” He looked straight past me and out through the window....
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Report from California
Off and on over the years, I’ve thought travel writing would be a great gig: get expenses covered, see what’s on everybody’s bucket list, flirt with unfamiliar cuisine, generally live it up, and report...
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Under the Clock
Getting out of bed this morning was like lifting an anvil. Both wife Kathy and I lay slack-jawed through alarm after alarm. I’m not sure choosing Bach’s Goldberg Variations as my iPhone wake up call...
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Why All This Crazy Killing? America’s Rights Addiction
Dear Friends, The following essay first appeared under a different title on A Napper’s Companion in April of 2013. I had about -10 followers at that time, so my 2700+ words amounted to whistling into...
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My Problem as a Parent
A couple of weeks ago daughter Elena and I lunched on Reubens while grandson Cole chipmunked curly fries. “Cole,” she said, “swallow your food before you take another bite.” Sorry, buddy, but the...
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Writing and the Narrative of Suffering
I’ve never thought much about where my writing comes from, maybe because time for it is constrained. For over a dozen years, my habit has been to drop wife Kathy off at work or children Elena and Micah...
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Well It’s All Right: An Open Letter
Dear Everyone, I woke up singing this morning, a losing-weight-but-still-fluffy guy sliding into jeans and the Baja hoodie Kathy lovingly de-hooded for me years ago. Gimpy Watson had to pee, so out we...
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