Missouri Botanical Garden

On a most perfect late autumn afternoon last week, I took a long walk at Missouri Botanical Garden. The holiday train display is up! And the Japanese Garden was an oasis of long shadows and quiet stillness, dormant, full of hope of life springing forth again. One week later (well, earlier this week) I attended

Annual December letter

Dear friends and family around the world, The winter solstice again calls for reflection. The solstice reminds us that all things must end, and that most things can also be reborn, or at least renewed from the life force that was in them. Were that this would be true for our planet. We are careening

Complete stranger

I’m continuing the weekly exercise, intending to keep this up for 52 weeks, as I recount a wee piece of the story of my life. This week’s prompt: When has a complete stranger influenced your life? I am immediately mindful of a time when I was living hand-to-mouth, driving an ancient, held-together-with-twine white Mustang that guzzled

White House

I’m remembering today a trip in 2001 that included singing in the White House.

Christmas 1965

My mother’s edited Christmas letter from 1965 —

Six years

This evening marks six years since my father, V. Richard Carter, went to be with my forebears on a brighter shore.

Advent 3

It’s “stir up” Sunday as we await the newborn King . . . .

Love letter

Such a beautiful read! —

2023 carol

My December music composition this year is “Advent Antiphons,” written specifically for the choir and people of St. John’s Church, Tower Grove, in Saint Louis. I expect this anthem will be sung this coming Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent, at the church. (Of course I found a typo just after posting this.) I found

#TBT: Luck

I am reposting today something I wrote several years ago, because I do think this writing bears re-reading quite often!