Reflections on Walden

 In the early spring of 1845, a young Henry David Thoreau retreated to the woods surrounding Walden Pond, near Concord Massachusetts, and began a living experiment building his own house and living off the land.  Thoreau managed to sustain himself through farming and fishing; he hosted friends; he wrote.  And yes, he walked to town for provisions and to visit friends and mentors, such as Emerson, during his two year stint in the woods.  

This past spring, Becky and I began our own experiment of sorts, working with a builder to create our barndominium on the family farm where Becky grew up.  The build site overlooks a rather large body of water (our own Walden?) currently filled with algae and duckweed (and little to no fish).  But we have plans in our old age, and plenty of space to create our own sustainable gardens, arbors, orchards, and catchable and eatable fish.  There is also more than ample supply of deer and wild turkey if we are so inclined to stock a freezer full of game.

Like Thoreau, from our vantage point, there will be no other neighbors in view--though others are within walking distance to the north of our build site.  In short, we will be some 500 feet off the road, tucked back among old growth timber and surrounded be fields of corn and soy beans.  

Some may ask, Why?

The answer(s) are complex. First, because we can.  Secondly, it's our penultimate move--our last being (we hope much later) to the cemetery a few miles down the highway.  And then, we also like the idea of the seclusion (dare I say, peace and quiet?) that these wide open spaces will afford us for morning cups of coffee, working in the gardens, miles-long hikes along the fields and through woods, and enjoying evenings outside/inside with family and friends.  Can we, in essence, work up a self-sustainable supply of food stuffs?  That's one goal.  But the move goes even deeper.

Like Thoreau, whose second chapter in Walden deals with "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"--we will have some proximity to the smaller towns and villages where Becky and I grew up, to the Wabash river, and to our own private body of water and woods.  We are not far from civilization, but far enough disposed from it to say that we will be, in fact, living deeper into nature and deriving more of our existence from the water and the land.

Thoreau described it this way, but we can identify with his assessment:  "being about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a broad field; its bounding on the river, protected by its frogs and frost in the spring, the gray colors and ruinous state of the barn, and the dilapidated fences, which put an interval between me and the last occupant, the hollow and lichen-cover apple trees, gnawed by rabbits...the recollection I had of it when the house was concealed behind a dense grove of red maples, through which I could hear a (distant) dog bark."

These, too, are our ideals.  But it will take hard work and dedication in the years ahead to subdue the wild and domesticate our plot of earth.  At least we currently hope we can make something of the property before we have no strength or resolve to work it any further.  But by then we hope to have our gardens and groves planted, fish teaming, and ample time to sit and enjoy sunrises from the front porch and long walks among the fields in the evening breezes.

The building itself and the working of the land is daunting, as Thoreau realized (and which we know requires the strength, years, and stamina which are now in short supply). 

Our own Walden is still in the making...but it will be fun to try.

    Writing in Retirement

It has been seven years since I last wrote on "Between Pages" and over two years since I retired. But some people have been asking: "Are you still writing?"  

The answer is complicated.

Short answer is "yes".  But my writing has been curtailed to a great extent by lack of motivation and focus. Since retirement much has transpired, including death of two parents (father and mother-in-law), some travel, and, since the advent of 2024, undertaking a new house-build on the family farm (where Becky grew up, Fairbanks, IN) and getting our Brownsburg home ready to sell in early 2025.  

During these brief retirement years I have, however, managed to publish a second volume of poetry, The Kinship of Ordinary Things, a collection of poems written, and to a large extent published in journals and magazines, over the past decade.  And, at last, my children's biography is soon to be released, All About Mohandas Gandhi--a book I wrote nearly six years ago but publication date waylaid by the pandemic.  

New writing? It seems I am always working on something (at least the intent of writing) but my production has dropped off significantly from my days when I was working 55-70 hours a week as a pastor and also writing seven days a week in the interstices of available time.  One year during my hay days, I recall having five books published and managed to produce a half dozen others in that same twelve months.  But that was then.  

This is now.

And I'm older and slower and have every intent of enjoying life in the moments available, and remaining, to me.  

My intent is to keep adding to this "Between Pages" journal moving forward. We'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, thanks for reading.

Conversations

(Author photo on the couch:  ready to write, ready to sleep . . . take your pick)



I have enjoyed several speaking engagements, interviews, and book signings of late. But, although I have been a public speaker for over thirty-five years, these things still make me uncomfortable, especially TV and radio interviews.  I hate speaking into a microphone in a vacant studio, for example, and I've never grown comfortable in front of a camera lens.

Where I am most comfortable is here . . . in front of a blank page of paper or a Word.doc screen with a flashing cursor. 

Having said that, it is always an interesting and engaging experience meeting the public.  I do enjoy people and the conversations, and some are, to say the least, fascinating.

At a book signing last week, for example, one lady approached the table at Barnes & Noble and studied the various books/titles that were displayed between us.  She looked at my name on the book covers, looked at me, and then said, "I've never heard of any of these book titles, but I have heard of you." 

"How so?" I asked.

"Well," she answered, "aren't you that guy who never sleeps?"

I laughed and then said, "I can assure you that I do sleep.  But I do write late into the night and often rise early of a morning to write . . . and there are times when I do work all night to meet a deadline.  But that's most writers.  I do sleep."

Of course, she wasn't interested in purchasing one of my books, but she was fascinated by the moniker.  Guy who never sleeps.  Gotta remember that one.  Perhaps I should use that as my handle--GWNS.  It would make an easy business card or a text handle.  

GWNS.

A lot easier to remember than the book titles and my name.
~Todd 

Missing Old Friends & Old Pages

Thoughts today turned to old friends and past publications and I found myself mourning the loss of The Wittenburg Door . . . a magazine that I began writing for back in my Duke Divinity School days, back when Mike Yaconelli was holding court in those pages of parody and speaking truth to power and privilege.  I hitched my star to that wagon for many years.

I still miss Becky Garrison, Joe Bob Briggs, Bob Darden and the rest of the crew . . . and I miss writing my religious parodies most of all.  These kept me honest (or at least a bit more so).  Religious professionals, and especially the vast army of televangelists, are like shooting fish in a barrel.  It's easy to parody what is, in essence, a cast and crew of zany personalities and fundamentalist wackos.  

Some of the pieces I wrote were classics.  The Three Stooges Bible Study.  The Theology of SpongeBob Squarepants.  Christian Singles Ads.  The Prayer of Jezebel.  I could go on . . . 

I still pray that someone, some how, will revive this much-needed magazine of Religious parody and bring it back to health.  God knows we need it.  I certainly do.

~Todd

Memoir

(Photo:  the young author and his dog, Tippy, 1964, Robinson, Illinois)




I am currently at work on my memoir, Tippy's Nine Lives:  A Family Memoir in Dog Years.  It's been fun going so far.  But a memoir, unlike fiction or a book of non-fiction, is tricky business . . . a no-man's-land of real life stories that may yet impact the living.  As I write, I continue to ponder how my family and friends will respond to my memories of situations and events.

As I told my brother not long ago . . . I can't make this stuff up.  Our lives were too zany to create out of whole cloth.  

But memoirs are tightropes . . . a dangerous journey across mind and memory, trying to stay the narrow course of events, stepping lightly upon secrets and private conversations while maintaining enough humor and dignity to make the realities readable for others.  

I've been wanting to write the memoir for years, and I'm so fortunate to be able to do so.

But I'm not sure about the outcomes.  Once the book is published, I may discover that I am an orphan . . . abandoned by family and friends.  I can only hope I tell the story truthfully.  

So please stay tuned.  Tippy's on the way. 

In Between

It's been many moons since I wrote a blog post, but here at the apex of 2017 I decided to re-up my commitment to writing "Between Pages".  And although I've not written a blog for six months, that's not to say that I have been lax in my commitments to the written word.  I've written plenty of pages, and a few forthcoming.

Last week my latest book hit the shelves--my first children's work--a reader entitled All About Martin Luther King, Jr.   I am always excited about new titles--but this one, in particular, is dedicated to the Ten Point Coalition of Indianapolis.  In case you are not familiar with this work, it is a movement dedicated to keeping peace in the streets and working for the improvement of young people, offering hope and purpose to those whose lives, otherwise, might be defined by poverty, crime and violence.

It is only fitting that this book have a place in helping the Ten Point Coalition's work.  In the coming weeks I'll be speaking in schools and libraries, talking on a few television and radio shows, and scheduling in a few book signings . . . all to help raise awareness and pledge support.  You can help, too.

First, let's all celebrate the upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday--a day not only to remember Dr. King and his words, but perhaps more importantly to remain firm in our commitment to equality, social justice, and civil rights. This is an American holiday reminding us that the work of social equality and justice is ongoing. 

Secondly, we can pray for the work of Ten Point and other ministries that are addressing poverty and lifting up the needs of our young people.

Thirdly, we can be involved in peace-making and peace-building.  

I especially enjoyed writing this book on Dr. King because I knew he was, first and foremost, a pastor--a preacher of the gospel, and one who believed in the power of Christ's words to transform, both personally and socially.  His legacy, and the struggles of Civil Rights, must always be told to a new generation of children.  If we don't tell the story, we are doomed to repeat the past.

So, thanks for reading.  And thanks for helping to spread the word about the Dr. King reader and the work of Ten Point Coalition.  I hope my little biography of Dr. King might touch a few young lives and make the work of social justice evident, all the while holding out the hope of a better future for all Americans.  Let justice roll down like waters . . . and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!  Amen.

~Todd

Lost and Found

Many years ago I recall reading one of Garrison Keillor's essays about a lost comedy piece--a story he had worked on in a train station, composing on yellow legal pads.  After boarding the train, and several miles down the track, Keillor suddenly realized that he had left the yellow legal pads in the train station restroom where he had washed his hands prior to departure.  In that moment of losing his work, Keillor was certain that he had forfeited some of the best work of his life, and he moved on down the track feeling lonely and dejected.

I tell this story because, as I have talked to other writers over the years, it is obvious that most have encountered this lost feeling at one time or another.

A few years ago, when my PC crashed, leaving me with only the blue screen of death, I realized that I had several great stories, essays, and book proposals that I had not backed up.  They were lost.  And for some weeks I walked around in a stupor, a writer's funk, a purgatory of the soul.  I just couldn't get going again, certain that I had also lost some of the best work I had ever produced.

I try to do a better job now of backing up my work . . . lingering doubts always in my mind as to the trustworthiness of memory chips produced in Japan.  I write, but always with the fear and trepidation, however distant, that someday the lights might go out and I'd lose, say, an entire year's-worth of work.

Toward that end, I have always appreciated my 1993 Compaq PC (with Windows '95 operating system and three fans). This computer still runs.  But some years ago I had apply named it "Old Sparky" due to its tendency to suddenly leap into flame (which is why I also kept a spray bottle next to the keyboard).  

Last night, in a post-midnight apocalyptic fit of locating some old stories I knew I had written (again, certain that these were some of the best material I have ever produced) . . . I fired up Old Sparky and set about navigating through a few hundred floppy discs to see what I could find.

In particular, I was looking for a horror story entitled "Up in Jacky's Treehouse". And low and behold, after perusing more than 50 floppies, each holding a myriad of essays and poems and whole book manuscripts, I finally found "Jacky".  In addition, I also found four other stories that, for the life of me, I can't remember writing at all. It was like reading another person's work . . . but I'm looking forward to reading these again, and seeing how well I did writing the stories--some, perhaps, twelve or thirteen years ago.

I love finding these types of gifts.  I'm sure there are more that I have not yet discovered among the hundreds of other floppies that I have stored in boxes and closets.  Losing a story is depressing.  But locating old ones, and, even better, finding homes for them with a publisher, is pure gravy.