Our family traipse – not unlike Viking forbears who once sailed the Volga and traded wares on the Silk Road – began long ago in a Minnesota winter, with ports of call like Shanghai, Hong Kong, Penang, Rangoon and Chittagong, mostly aboard plucky freighters. In time, we came to live on the verge of the … More A House Called ‘Deliverance’
Scattered across southern Africa, at highway intersections, as at village crossroads, an unnoticed dynamic is in play. In the dead of night, a traditional healer has crept on to the scene and buried there, in secret, the tools of a diviner’s trade: small bits of bone, shells, sundry coins, buttons and stones. In a region … More The Bones: Buried – and Empowered – at the Crossroads
From earliest times, water sources and wells have been the scene of rare encounter, of betrothal and alliance, of secrets, struggles and dreams, yes, and of slaking thirst for mortal and beast, nowhere more earnestly than in the arid interiors of the planet’s landmasses. When desert winds drive storms of dust and sand, when the … More Molepolole: Dark Beauty Below the Roofing Sheets
Plant yourself in the sand of the Kerala seashore, the Arabian Sea creaming at your feet, a warm westerly caressing your face. This is the Malabar coast. Spice garden of the East, fantasy of mariners drawn by the fragrance – and fortunes – of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger and clove. They came by turn from ancient … More Mahatma and the Mariners: Tales of the Malabar Coast
The story board of sacred writ recounts that in their beginnings, humankind and the animals were created on the same day, the sixth day (Genesis 1:24-31). This arrangement surely suggests some commonality, perhaps even fellowship, while serving also as a check on our hubris. That whatever the glories of angel-flight inspiration and achievement, we can … More Sixth-Day Fellowship: Of Labor, Mischief and Mirth
Beyond the Jamaica cruise stops of Negril, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, there is an island world of richest stories, stories of suffering and dark struggle but told with lyric heart. Who hasn’t danced to the reggae music of Bob Marley and the Wailers or been schooled by their torchy ballads of yearning for freedom … More Christmas Carol From A Kingston ‘Long-Drop’
Consider the French word, dépaysé. It aptly describes travelers who after long east-west travels clamber off holiday jets in the likes of Hawaii, the Costa del Sol, Capetown or Baku. The French term means literally ‘un-countried’. Otherwise, in English, it can mean ‘dazed’ or ‘bewildered’. For moderns accustomed to the reach of transcontinental jets, it … More Pitseng: Jetlag in a Kalahari Hamlet
