Ken Trainor

Morning light Meaning, grace, authenticity What matters Those who help instead of harm The courage it takes to be human Colorful leaves clinging to limbs, well past their due date, the last to fall Lamplights in living rooms when the world outside goes dark Windows aglow cheering passersby on their way home at night

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

It might surprise you to hear that, as an agnostic, I bother talking to God at all. But agnostics, while not believing in God, don’t disbelieve either. We hold open the possibility on both ends of the belief spectrum. So I frequently find myself talking to the God Who May or May Not Exist.

The long train of Christmases adds another carriage. For many seasons, melancholy curdled the messy merry-ness of the holidays, my life passing me by, December by December, and I wondered, would I ever get the hang of it?

Edy Fielder Burton Nancy Norton Robinson Helen Glynne Gervais Terry Rice George Manning Ann Marohn Jack Helbig (Provided) Jack Swanson Hannah Voigt Bill Dooley Coach Ken Uhlir (Courtesy of Trinity High School) Mary Anne Brown Nile Gossett Bob Cullen Wilmer Rutt Betty Peaslee Don O’Brien Ed O’Brien Bill Marshall Tyra Manning Gus Boudros Bruce Samuels Tony Kinert Connie Rakitan Gerri Keating Gary Mancuso Gene McCormack Robert Follett Patrick Hemingway Bruce Sagan Jim Dooley Joan Ryan Mickey Baer Burt Andersen Mel Noel Jr. Jack Kernan

New year. New beginning. Beginning of the end of the Trump presidency? Beginning of a new era for America and the world? Beginnings can be quite exciting.

Last weekend’s first Saturday of spring reminded me of a column I wrote about its counterpart in March of 2019:

We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail. I love Anand Giridharadas’ statement above, one of three gateway quotes leading into Rebecca Solnit’s latest book, The Beginning Comes After the End – Notes on a World of Change, which I recommend if you’re feeling hope-starved — which probably describes most of us at this point. Solnit has a gift for finding viable avenues to hope. She doesn’t indulge […]

As the father of an only child, I assumed grandfathering would be more complicated with twins. And it was — whenever they headed in different directions as toddlers — but they survived and turned into a forged unit. I never expected to have any more grandkids, but my son’s second marriage has produced Charlotte, aka […]

It’s May and the donuts are back. With Farmers Market reopening, I decided to revisit a column I wrote back in 2013: Waking to a rainy Sunday was soothing. As beautiful as Friday and Saturday were — low humidity, clean skies, clarified sunlight, comfortably cool — I enjoyed this cloud-cast Sunday even more. A light […]