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Focus on the Fundamentals

A few years ago while visiting the Baylor University journalism department where I earned my degree, I learned that while their new name – Journalism, Public Relations and New Media – is a nod to all the new forms of communication that exist, the focus is still on the fundamentals of strong reporting and writing. For that reason, The Baylor Lariat – the daily newspaper that I worked on 30 years ago – is still the centerpiece of the program. That’s remarkable given that the paper’s primary readership has grown up with texts and tweets. Continue reading “Lenten Reflections”

Praying with St. Francis

Backing down the driveway, I glanced to the right across the corner of the yard and saw a squirrel sitting squarely on top of the head of St. Francis.

The 18-inch concrete statue of St. Francis of Assisi has been standing beside the pecan tree for years. I’ve seen him visited by squirrels, birds, even a football-sized turtle that crawled up from the creek. But a squirrel perched on his noggin? That’s a first. From a distance, all that brown fur wrapped around his scalp made him look less like a 13th century holy man and more like Davy Crockett. It was a ridiculous sight, and I put my foot on the brake long enough to take a fuzzy photo with my phone. Continue reading “Lenten Reflections”

Keeping an Eye on the Cross

In March 2011 when I was having some repairs made at my house in preparation for putting it on the market, I groaned when I came home one evening and found that the painters had cleared a corner of the kitchen where a dozen or more crosses had been hanging. They needed to repair a crack high on the wall and they moved the crosses so they wouldn’t get spattered with texture and paint. They also pulled out all the little nails so they could feather and blend the new paint. I appreciated all of that, but unfortunately I didn’t have a photograph to remind me of how I had the crosses arranged. Continue reading “Lenten Reflections”