A friend and I were Chipotle-ing, talking Thanksgiving twists and turns—of college kids zooming in and out of our homes too quickly and rogue relations popping into town and offspring becoming adults with ideas of their own about how to keep holidays. What a mess we make this time of year, we agreed, despite our…
Some folks claim to be a “dog person or a “cat person.” Others say “I’m a people person”—I am particularly suspicious of these. I am a place person. A recent trip to New England is proof. My relationship with the region is not complicated. Having spent a chunk of my childhood in Connecticut, I am…
Face my direction, I wanna to see you better, dear. You’re a distraction from everything that I feel. ~ “Turn to White” by She and Him A week ago today, the spouse and I arrived at our getaway spot—a swanky hotel in the not-so-swanky city of Chattanooga. (Sometimes, the hotel is the destination.) Luke fetched a…
Disclaimer: The following represents a cornucopia of experiences, some of them exaggerated for dramatic effect. A composite, if you will. Names have been omitted or changed to protect the guilty. Congratulations! I say this with a megaphone, ticker tape—with gusto! I feel like I need these things to get your attention. Because your high…
We are grateful, dear readers, for the time you’ve spent here on Golden Hours this Christmas. Lanier and I have enjoyed every minute. Reader Lorrie has won the drawing for a copy of The Awakening of Miss Prim. Congratulations, Lorrie, and many thanks to all who commented and shared Golden Hours posts on social…
Miss Prim arrived at the appointed time in the early afternoon carrying a tray of freshly baked cakes. After almost three months in the village, she knew that tea, coffee, or hot chocolate, fine pastries, and a good liqueur were essential to any social gathering there. ‘It surprised me too at first, but I’ve…
There are two speeds: Advent-speed and Christmas-speed. I don’t know about you, but around mid-December the former fades. Thanks for the memories—fireside readings with the family, meditating about all that is to come, eight hours of sleep, breathing… Nowadays, I am jacked up on Christmas. Which is kind of fun but also not so pretty….
It is no-screen Sunday, and I am tired. Nevertheless, I cannot let the evening pass without wishing the Interwebs a most happy and blessed beginning to Advent. The first, brave purple taper shines! All in all, a good day at the Boggs household. Not perfect, mind you. Twas packed with church and chores and tree-twirling…
“I need the church to remind me of reality: time is not a commodity that I control, manage, or consume. The practice of liturgical time teaches me, day by day, that time is not mine. It does not revolve around me. Time revolves around God—what he has done, what he is doing, and what he…
We have cool friends. Seriously. Friday night, two of them hosted a Michaelmas party. The spouse and I went—with bells on. The gathering was billed as “an evening of readings and song,” and so it was. Following a crazy-talented singer-songwriter, a number of English madrigals performed acapella, a historian, an autumnal sonnet by Lanier, and…
This past Sunday was All Saints’ Day, a day on the liturgical calendar that carries a certain mystique—and perhaps an air of ghostliness, especially for my Evangelical friends. Ever-accommodating to the every-Sunday-is-Resurrection-Sunday set—his congregation is smack dab in the heart of the South—our Anglican church pastor (dare I say priest?) explained how All Saints’ marks…
“I’ve known thin places all my life, but I didn’t have the language for them until I took a trip to Ireland a few years back… Thin places are transparent places or moments, set apart by the quality of the sunlight in them, or the shadows, or the silence, or the sounds—see how many variations…
“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to…
We always love to hear from readers, and this little note is no exception: “I was catching up on Golden Hours today and I was inspired by Lanier writing about her mom having tea with her and her sister everyday. So I had tea with the girls when they got home from school. It was…
Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. You know it’s time for a change when your kid corrects you. It was during family dinnertime, when I was waxing sarcastic about a woman we know who posted on social media daily photos of sunsets and rainbows and dolphins, along with encouraging (but…
Dear Lanier, It was terribly clever of you to type up an agenda for our little writers’ luncheon yesterday. Without it, I fear we would have held court for even longer than the three hours we occupied our corner of the café. (Although it wasn’t so much our corner, was it? Seeing as despite the…
“There is nothing that makes me happier than sitting around the dinner table and talking until the candles are burned down.” ~ Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet As you’ve likely gathered, the content in this small corner of the web is unapologetically old-fashioned. A new-fashioned concept—at least to those of us outside Scandinavia—is…
A proper piece of poetry should stand on its own—no poem worth its salt should require a backstory. But I don’t claim to be a poet, so here it is: I am reeling from a recent rejection. I talk a big talk about dusting myself off and try, try, trying again. And again. About how the…
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