A good friend of mine posted a favorite poem of his on Facebook. It is also a favorite of mine: Wendell Berry’s, Practice Resurrection.
Here, I may have given a wrong impression. While this poem often stands on its own it actually is the ending of a larger piece: Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.
Practice resurrection. What does that look like? For me it means doing the things that breathe life into duty, bring cheer into disarray, give meaning to my own life, and to another’s. Reaching out to another person, offering hope to those grown hopeless, bringing food to those who hunger. And, sometimes, we are the people in need of an encouraging word.
I celebrate Berry’s work for offering us the term of practice resurrection. It reminds me that, like many worthy efforts in life, we are given the very shareable gift of resurrection.
Enjoy the words:
So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it.
Today, a good number of people ordained in the Episcopal Church will head to Phoenix for the Renewal of Vows service. I will be among them.
The service is paired with receiving Holy Oils blessed by the Bishop for use in churches throughout the coming year.
This is not only a local event. Across the country, deacons, priests, bishops attend such a service annually, many of those services traditionally occurring on the Tuesday in Holy Week. This year, that falls on March 31.
This is serious business, yet not grim. It is a joyous opportunity to remember not only our day of ordination, when promises were made, but also the intervening years of serving God’s people, both when it has been uplifting and also when it has borne the weight of tears.
This service we are called to provide is a twenty-four-seven calling. Over time and as the new wears off, we may find our spirit threatened.
But then we receive the Holy Week call to renew the vows made at our ordaining and we happily respond as we did then: I will.
Tales of a preeminent sled dog race can either celebrate or denigrate this long-standing Alaska event.
As a longtime dog lover, I can see this annual event two ways. A celebration of the dog-human relationship, or a misuse of the trust dogs so easily invest in us.
Either way, I can’t turn away from a couple of amazing accounts nestled in history books.
First, some news from the 2026 race that ended on March 17, when Jessie Holmes won his second consecutive Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Nome, Alaska. The former reality TV star completed the roughly 1,000-mile course in nine days, seven hours, and 32 minutes. As this year’s winner, Holmes received an $80,000 prize.
Now for a couple of did-you-knows:
Saving lives with sleds
In the 1920s, before vaccines, there were 100,000–200,000 diphtheria cases and 13,000–15,000 deaths in the US each year.
The risk made its way all the way to Alaska. While a successful serum was available, getting it to Alaska was not always possible.
The 1925 Great Race of Mercy saw 20 mushers and give or take 150 dogs relay diphtheria antitoxin 674 miles in 5.5 days to save Nome, Alaska, from an outbreak.
Facing -50°F temperatures and blizzards, teams led by Togo and Balto delivered the serum, inspiring the annual 1,000-mile Iditarod sled dog race.
After a vaccination program was introduced in the late 1940s, cases dropped dramatically. Today, childhood vaccination rates remain high.
Yes, poodles on the Iditarod
A musher named John Suter had a dream to run the Iditarod with Standard Poodles, and he actually made it happen. He got his first poodle in 1975 and by 1976 was running local races near Chugiak, Alaska.
Suter entered the 1988 Iditarod with standard European poodles on his dogsled team. He placed 38th out of 52 starters in that 1,100-mile race.
And yes — in 1988, Suter appeared on The Tonight Show to talk about his poodle racers. That link is available in YouTube.
It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, a time for celebration.
We drink green beer, eat corned beef and cabbage, and offer a shamrock for good luck.
Nothing’s too much for the man who chased snakes out of Ireland. Right? I agree, but let’s clear up a few things first.
The man we call Patrick was a slave who returned to be among his former captors.
This is the core of the man, and it’s an exceptional response. Here’s some more.
At the age of 16, Patrick was taken prisoner by Irish raiders and taken to Ireland. There, he spent around six years, enslaved as a shepherd — lonely and afraid, turning to religion for solace.
Most people, once they escape their “prison,” never look back. Patrick did the opposite. He felt there was work there to be done.
After six years of captivity, Patrick heard a voice telling him his ship was ready to take him home.
He traveled 200 miles to the nearest port and managed to persuade a captain to let him stow away. He made it back to Britain and his family.
A nice enough story if it ended there.
But it doesn’t.
After years of study, he returned to Ireland — his mission twofold: to minister to Christians already in Ireland, and to convert the non-believers.
He wasn’t responding to an obligation. He was responding to “a calling.”
And he wasn’t even Irish. He was born in either Scotland or northern England and described himself as a Roman and a Briton.
“Patrick” was not his birth name. When the Pope authorized him to evangelize Ireland, he was prophetically named Patricius, meaning “father of citizens.”
Because of his enslavement, Patrick missed out on formal education. His education was limited to religious teachings, and he apparently taught himself to read and write beyond basic Latin.
Most of us would applaud these results. But the lack of formal schooling embarrassed him — yet his success as a missionary is attributed to tenacity and “dogged determination,” even in the face of doubts about his own self-worth.
He actually wrote about this insecurity in his autobiography, Confessio — one of the oldest personal spiritual memoirs.
Here’s a surprising twist: Patrick was never canonized by the Catholic Church — simply because he lived before there was a formal canonization process.
He was proclaimed a saint by the people of Ireland His feast day wasn’t even added to the universal Church calendar until the 1600s.
Oh, and the snake stories are not real. Ireland has no snakes, then or now. The legend is regarded as a metaphor for Patrick’s Christianizing efforts, perhaps drawing on the Judeo-Christian tradition of snakes as symbols of evil.
In other words, he wasn’t driving out reptiles — he was driving out paganism.
Patrick’s story is about a traumatized teen-ager who became a willing exile for the sake of the very people who had enslaved him.
That’s not a story about green beer, corned beef and cabbage, or even the noble shamrock.
That’s a story about forgiveness, resilience, and radical purpose.
The sentence above proved to be an important lesson in my life, courtesy of a dear friend long since gone.
She’d catch me off guard in the middle of a rant (for want of a better word.) I might be speaking of a family member or friend—someone I knew pretty well. I was frustrated that they were not showing their “true” colors. Maybe I had them pegged as hard-hearted, and they just did a loving thing. Or maybe I thought they were tough, but then saw them well up with tears upon seeing a fragile sparrow deceased on the ground.
I could go on, but I hope I have made the point of my friend Martha Petrey. “MT (what she called me), nobody is just one thing. You miss out on lots of wonderful surprises by confining them to a single definition.”
I know that is true, but I also know that “categorizing” brings some control to an otherwise uncontrollable world. Hence, it makes me feel safe. It’s hard to give up those two assurances.
This week I encountered her wisdom once again.
My brother Jim texted me a long poem written by our paternal grandfather. I once had possession of it, and how it ended up in his home in Milwaukee is a mystery to us both.
Titled “Prodigal Girl,” the poem takes Luke 15:11-32 as its inspiration, only it flips the script. Ask yourself this, Ben Trainor seems to pose, would the story even appeal to Luke’s readers if the wayward offspring were a girl?
Jim and I never knew GrandpaTrainor since he died before we were born. All we had to go on were other people’s memories or opinions.
Most of them never knew Martha Petrey, or someone like her who understands that nobody is just one thing.
By most accounts that we ever heard, Ben was characterized as a stern, punitive, by-the-book man, and a staunch Roman Catholic who believed no one other than RCs would cross the threshold of heaven.
He was a railroad engineer, which means he was gone from home a lot, so we think Grandma probably filled in many blanks for her children and their children
Our mother, who somehow “got him” better than his own kids did, told us there was much more depth to the man than was ever revealed to his children.
She also shared that he loved to write, and was frequently published in Railroad Magazine.
Perhaps “Prodigal Girl” graced its pages.
Commentary by Mary Trainer about Prodigal Girl
Narrative reading of Prodigal Girl Poem
Prodigal Girl
By Benjamin Trainor (1923)
Historical Context
Written in 1923, ‘Prodigal Girl’ reflects a period in American society when moral expectations for women were rigid and public judgment could be swift and unforgiving. The 1920s were a time of social change—women had recently gained the right to vote, and cultural norms were shifting—yet traditional standards of virtue remained deeply entrenched. In this poem, Benjamin Trainor challenges the double standard that celebrated the return of the ‘prodigal son’ while condemning the ‘prodigal girl.’ His words offer a compassionate critique of societal hypocrisy and advocate for mercy, dignity, and fairness.
If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same …
At age nine (or thereabouts) I met Rudyard Kipling as I flipped through pages of “The Best Loved Poems of the American People.”
It was a book I frequented, guaranteed to be full of laughter and tears, poetry to meet you in whatever condition you arrive. It’s been on my mind lately, so this morning I ordered a used copy from Abe’s Books.
In Kipling’s poem “If” his words stretch across a lifetime of encounters and challenges of one human being, presumably a son.
My basic takeaway is, “If this can happen and that can happen, and you’re still standing, you have succeeded at life’s journey.”
The example atop this blog has stuck with me over seventy decades. In it he talks about two imposters—triumph and disaster. The advice is to treat them the same. Imposters? They can seem very real at the time. Gloriously real and painfully real.
Yet they both offer an opportunity to see ourselves for what we are. Bold, sweet, fleeting, flitting through our lives, and eventually out again.
They are incidents in a day, a month, a year. They are parts of the whole, but they are not the whole.
In us, if we are paying attention, these incidents can lead to wholeness. Paying attention is crucial.
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Psalm 51:1
If a movie stars Robert Duvall it is already a winner in my eyes. I don’t believe I am alone in that estimation.
Mr. Duvall departed this world on Sunday, February 15, at age 95, headed to his best yet, and final role.
If I had a list of twenty-five favorites, you’d find Duvall’s 1983 movie Tender Mercies at or near the top. If you haven’t seen the movie, you might wonder at this assessment. But I am not alone in my praise. After all, he was awarded Best Actor Academy Award for this film.
In remembering Mr. Duvall, we remember more than an extraordinary actor; we remember a storyteller who understood that the most powerful performances are often the quietest. In Tender Mercies, he gave us a portrait of brokenness without despair and faith without spectacle. He reminded us that redemption rarely arrives with applause — it comes in small choices, steady steps, and undeserved grace. His performance endures because it tells the truth: the way home is seldom dramatic, but it is always possible.
The movie borrows its title from scripture, namely Psalm 51, which is featured in Ash Wednesday services in many Christian churches. David is said to be the author of this psalm, written following his greatest moral breaches: He slept with Bathsheba, another man’s wife, and she became pregnant. In desperation, David sunk lower and arranged for the other man, Uriah, to be killed. David tried to cover up his sins, but was outed by the prophet Nathan.
There he stood. An adulterer, a murderer, and a liar. Finally, he was at the bottom. The psalm is his appeal to God, an appeal which most–if not all–of us can recognize. Our sins may not be on the same scale as David’s, but I know–at least for me–the need of his prayer: According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions…
Nancy Guthrie is still missing. At least as of noon MST on Tuesday, February 10.
Along with so many others I pray for a safe conclusion to this event. And soon.
I can only imagine how this is weighing on the family. From what I can observe, they appear to be holding it together pretty well. But there must be moments of sadness, anger, hope, futility. Family members have been the object of suspicion, at least at the gossip level. That’s the last place anyone should be judged, yet often it’s the first stop we make just trying to find the truth. Whatever that is.
I was a journalism major in college, later working some fifteen years for daily newspapers. That experience lends credibility to what I believe about the sometimes messy business of reporting the news.
You’ve got a deadline. You’ve got competition. You’ve got a boss who doesn’t want to be scooped.
You don’t want to be scooped.
You want to save your time for rooting out new angles, genuine updates, following law enforcement, following tips, and so on.
Nothing wrong with any of that. Except. In a race to deadline it’s very tempting to pick up what you’ve already run and slap it in there as background.
In so doing, it’s really easy to pick up something that was never factual, and you run it yet again.
There’s a good example from the Guthrie case.
Early on, news reports agreed that the family was alerted by a church friend when Nancy had not showed up for church Sunday morning, February 1. That was picked up and shared broadly. Why not?
The problem is the picture it created in readers’/viewers’ minds.
Many accounts since have picked up and run with this version. The problem? Nancy has not attended in-person church since COVID. Six-plus years ago
According to a story published today, the friend was wanting to set the record straight: since COVID, several women gather at another’s home on Sunday mornings to “attend” an online-church from New York. The article said that it is the church Savannah attends.
Maybe you think, so what? What difference does it make? Here’s how it created a difference for me.
BTW, I am an ordained Episcopal priest, and have wondered why a church friend would feel it so important to let the family know so quickly that their Mom was a no-show at church. I strongly suspected that some detail was missing.
What’s factual is that this friend did inform the family. What isn’t factual is that this was connected to a Tucson church. We are still free to attend or not attend a church service in its building. An absence here or there wouldn’t automatically trigger a call to family.
But a no-show to a friend’s house is a much different situation.
So my practice is to be suspicious while reading or viewing the news, and if something just doesn’t add up right, call the reporter and check it out. They want it right, also.
Dear God, we pray for the safe return of Nancy Guthrie, and for peace of heart and mind for her family. Amen.
Good or bad, each day unfolds pretty much to our expectations.
Kids to school.
Dog to vet.
Catch the top news, however it is we do that.
Phone Mom and Dad.
Text that recipe to a friend.
Go to a scheduled meeting.
For the most part, days pass by like that, without surprise, without incident.
The rhythm is so reliable, it leaves little room for the surprises.
But the surprises can force their way in anyway.
You never know what the day may bring.
It’s a simple sentence that doesn’t require a lot of explaining. Even so, we march on, optimistic, not a care in the world.
Oh, sure, we know that our next moment might be ripped from us. But intellectually knowing the possibilities of major disruptions does not adequately prepare us for when they come.
Just read the headlines on a given day, and put yourself in the place of someone who got that bad news.
Here are a couple of examples, occurrences that nearly take your breath away:
—My heart goes out to the family of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, missing from in Tucson, Arizona.
—Also to the family of an 18-year-old Northern Arizona University student who is presumed to have died in a fraternity rush activity.
So, what’s my point?
Well, since there’s no known way of warding off horrific news, I believe I am left with doing a better job of valuing, not only the great days, but also the mindless days when no harm comes to me or mine. Days when I forget something on my grocery list, or have to circle the block several times to get a parking place; or clean up where my dog peed on the kitchen floor because I didn’t get her out in time.
Imperfections, for sure, but not tragic, or life-altering, or even memorable.
So, welcome, ordinary days. I hope to see you for the blessing you are and the treasure you bring to my life.
