I don’t like crowds any more, meaning being in them or following them. Following a crowd is not a Cheatham trait. When as a child, I wanted to follow the current crowd, Mom would say, “If everyone is jumping into the fire, are you going to jump with them?” She knew how to curb our […]
Sometimes we understand a story not by what is present but what is absent. In his book, Ambition and Survival, Christian Wiman says, “It’s been said a poem makes absence itself into a perceivable presence.” He then states, “I respond most deeply to art that has, you might say, a hole in it, some stark
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Admission, if not compulsory, opens me toward confession. I admit and confess my faith experiences doubt on occasion. Sometimes I shrug at its appearing. At other times, my doubts weigh on me heavily like a boat dropping anchor in deep water. And then some revelation comes along and I weigh anchor and sail on, lightened
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Of late, I’ve been taking time to put my worldly house in order, performing certain social duties, tending to work and involving myself in issues begging for my attention. This means a certain discipline to sacrifice indulgences and overriding thoughts about “I’d rather be doing anything else but.” Today, I went to my dentist and
