“When Death Comes” When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility,…

Ask the beasts and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. –God to Job (Ch. 12) Oh, if we would but learn to listen! To hear the stories our fellow creatures tell! We would occupy our own skin and muscle and bone more fully, inhabit our planet graciously, be present to the divine DNA in our fellow humans… in all that is.

I want not only to observe but to know living things, and this implies a dimension of primordial familiarity which is simple and primitive and religious and poor. –Thomas Merton

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste. –St. Francis of Assissi St. Francis of Assissi did not merely “love nature.” He was in fellowship with creation and taught us how to be.

Fifteen years ago, post-Hurricane Katrina flooding devastated New Orleans. Five years ago, I stored the 200+ feet of panels that comprised “WATERLINE: an interactive photo installation.” In the 10 years I worked seriously on that project, all or parts of it were installed 15 times around Louisiana and in Niceville, Florida, and Philadelphia. Of the hundreds of comments written on the panels by the thousands of people who viewed them, “Make levees, not war” is among my favorites. This year, Louisiana is rebuilding Lake Charles and much of the southwest corner of the state, devastated by Hurricane Laura. But Laura…