jimwdollar

Sir Sidney The Brave

Sidney Wascomb liked to walk through the town junk yard on his way home from school. Every afternoon he would nose around in heaps of trash, digging and tugging, shifting and piling, looking for anything unusual and useful. One day, at the bottom of an exceptionally large mound of rubbish, Sidney came upon the findContinue reading “Sir Sidney The Brave”

The Frog King

It happened quite by accident deep in the night when the moon was dark and dense clouds covered the sky, and no one could see anything if they were awake that late, looking, which the Wicked Witch Peggy of the Dismal Forest was. Of course, you couldn’t actually say she was “looking” for anything—it wasContinue reading “The Frog King”

Sour Sophie

During my childhood, Sour Sophie Morgan was The Enemy, and we were at war. We had always been at war. The war in which we were engaged had a timeless, always present sense about it, which made it a lot like grandfathers and bubble gum. It was so much a part of the way thingsContinue reading “Sour Sophie”

Kiddie Hawk

Joey Maynard was gone on Monday. We looked everywhere for him, but he was not to be found. He had vanished. I was only seven years old at the time, and that was a long time ago, but I’ll never forget Joey’s disappearance and the impact it had on us all. We had played Rope-and-Brand-’UmContinue reading “Kiddie Hawk”

Story Time

The nine stories in this collection originated as sermons in Amory, Mississippi. There were seventeen in all, before the congregation had enough and asked me not to do that anymore, but to return to the old comfortable way of telling them what they had already heard, and fully expected to always hear, as a confirmationContinue reading “Story Time”

Madonna with Child

She walked past the plate glass window next to the booth where I sat with my friend Bill in the worst hamburger joint on the eastern seaboard, eating a dripping grease burger oozing with melted Velveeta cheese of all things with fries fresh from a year in the freezer. She was twelve months pregnant, maybeContinue reading “Madonna with Child”

The Stile

I still see her climbing over the stile to meet the cows coming to the barn over the hard ground at sundown. I hear her saying, “I’ll miss these old cows,” and think, the cows miss her, too, in their way. We all do.

The Way of Soul Is the Way of Life

As conscious egos, we are full partners with our unconscious (so-called because we are not conscious of her/him) Self in effecting a growing union of conscious with unconscious, incarnating it in our life, and creating a life worth living. The Psyche (Soul) needs us to be its hero, championing the unconscious with compassionate, mindful, awareness,Continue reading “The Way of Soul Is the Way of Life”

The Stone of Life

Find a stone that attracts you. Claim it as a sacred (to you, anyway) object of meditation. You are the stone carrier, the stonemason, the stone. You activate the power of the stone through reflection and realization. Spend time with the stone on a regular basis, cultivating a ritual of recognition and reorientation, with theContinue reading “The Stone of Life”

The Foundation of Good Religion

The foundation of all good religion,world-wide(Universal, should there proveto be religions in other partsof the universe)is expressed in the four primary symbolsof Christianity–devoid of the theology surrounding them:Bread, Wine, Water, Cross.The Water is the amniotic fluid of birth.Every birth is birth by “water (and blood) and spirit,”with the “spirit” being the spirit of life andContinue reading “The Foundation of Good Religion”