This week’s Seen & Heard section supports our High Country Commentary, Pratt, Kansas, with a 1:43 bird’s eye view of Pratt.

This video grants a glimpse of community. We see the transportation arteries that bring people to or through a town, the placement of homes close (but not too close!) together in neighborhoods—bringing a cup of sugar, a shovel, a ride to the doctor, safety, and friendship to the people who live there.

When we see schools, churches, and stores flowing below our eye in the sky, we understand more about the synergistic virtues and layers and systems and finances that make it all work.

Plus, it brings a beautiful view of my hometown.

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Do you feel jostled?

I do. It seems that when people should speak softly or not at all, they often choose intrusive, shoving words. Because too many throw harsh words and sharp elbows, our public spaces seem saturated with contempt.

By contrast, God once walked with Adam and Eve “in the cool of the day.” (Genesis 3:8). So sweet, so warm, so relaxed.

Lately, all that has taken me back to Helen Hunt’s and Paul Reiser’s old sitcom, Mad About You, produced by Reiser’s Nuance Productions. I cannot see their closing production logo, a very simple presentation of its corporate identity, without smiling. Want a grin? Just click here for its 13-second logo.

That little “nudge” was such a perfect embodiment of the show itself—gentle, observant, small moments. A whole philosophy tucked into a fingertip.

The spirit of the age pulls us into raucous behavior. Although they may not yet define this historical moment clearly, I sense many people are tired of the shoving and the shouting. They seek the road less traveled. The one that leads higher.

What if we all stopped and took a deep breath? Might we find the more nuanced way … of gentle speech, understatement, listening, smiles, silence?

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The past few days have thrilled many of us earthlings with the adventure of four Artemis 2 astronauts on a magnificent trip to, and orbit around, the moon.

In seeing the lunar surface, the earth-rises, the candid shots of the team, etc., the 8 billion people on the earth touch their human commonality in a new way. We see, hear, feel, and fear what they do. Even their need for a working toilet highlights our universal bonds.

We are all our Creator’s children; we live under the canopy of His love. Every square inch of the heavens speaks of that.

This 11.5 minute video compilation captures the grand and heroic reach of the Artemis 2 venture.

The best thing I saw this week was Psalm 46 in “The Message.“

Especially verse 10: “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.”

Heavy traffic is just a fact of life today—soul-deadening and suffocating. It seems our tents are pitched in the median of a noxious and noisy freeway and our lives are synchronized to the beat of the cultural traffic. That makes the atmosphere dispiriting and dangerous.

What if we all stepped away from that congested traffic, ascended to a high mountain, far above timberline, and refreshed our view of God and His creation?

In that place—“above politics” and everything else—perhaps we could see everything and everyone more the way the Creator sees. Maybe God doesn’t see liberals, MAGA, Down Syndrome, Baptists, Buddhists, vegetarians, or any of the other easy descriptions.

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The best thing we’ve seen recently is an article by Helen Keller from the January, 1933 edition of Atlantic Monthly.

Keller, who lost her vision and hearing when she was a child, lived inside a grace to see and hear what many people could not. She wrote and spoke from the caverns of that grace.

This article from 93 years ago presents a knowing and textured look at how her perception pushed beyond mere physical senses. For example, she wrote:

I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song. I am delighted to have the cool waters of a brook rush through my open fingers. To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug. To me the pageant of seasons is a thrilling and unending drama, the action of which streams through my finger tips.

To read Three Days to See, just click here.

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A movie I can’t quite recommend examines the sad wreckage of a collapsed 15 year marriage. But The Story of Us (1999) contains a scene I do recommend.

The scene— a powerhouse speech about modern marriage—reveals the best that can happen when creative people find the sweet spot of collaboration. The director, Rob Reiner; the writers, Alan Zweible and Jessie Nelson; and actress Michelle Pfeiffer found glowing embers of the details about marriage.

Although they didn’t go for The Truth, they did grasp the small but crucial truths. They dared to gaze into the real reasons and rhythms behind the day to day dance of marital partners: “We are an us.”

To watch the scene from YouTube, just go here.

NOTE: The clip inexplicably cuts off the first few seconds of Pfeiffer’s speech, and you will have a couple of short commercial to watch before the clip begins. But your endurance will be rewarded.

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Farm Bureau produced a powerful story about generosity and community—in a commercial—a few years ago. If you’ve not seen it, please stop and watch it. If you have seen it, please stop and watch it. Again.

Just click here.

Classic artistic expressions like this commercial are what our Seen and Heard section is all about. What we saw or heard is worth passing on to our subscribers.

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Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s new book, Bringing Ben Home (Riverhead Books, 2024) tells the true story of Ben Spencer and a murder in Dallas in 1987. But Hagerty also uses the story to pull binoculars to her eye as she and we examine the mountain we call justice.

In her hands, Ben’s story becomes a vivid examination of the whole vicious cycle of injustice, that kaleidoscope of racism, class, DNA, best intentions, systemic sloppiness, hubris, and inertia. The story takes us up to peaks of hope, followed by soul-shattering falls.

It’s about careerism, politics, the weaknesses of eyewitness testimony, lost evidence, the scandal of jailhouse snitches, and the influence of money and power. The book also describes the great improvements in law enforcement as new thinking, leadership, levels of sanity, and technologies have entered the scene.

Beyond all that, Bringing Ben Home tells a “Timberline story.” One innocent man passes through the muddy lowlands of the American justice system, and is changed by it. But he also lives above it. Even as his body was incarcerated, his mind and spirit soared as high as the eagles. The book offers strong testimony that adversity may come, but it does not win.

For 32 years of prison life, Ben “… was anchoring his hope over and beyond the prison walls of his human life, into the eternal, a time beyond death. He no longer counted on witness recantations or biological evidence, the fickle stuff of humanity, but looked to the evidence of things not seen…”

Bringing Ben Home carries a life-altering payload of tenacity, resilience, faith, integrity, and the glow of true love in marriage and family.

This is one bracing, galvanizing, and then lovely story. It’s one of the best studies of what it is to be human I’ve read.

It often pulled me out of my office or from my bed and planted me back in my reading chair. If you care about justice, the power of love and faith, and living above the gritty streets of loss and suffering, spend some time in Ben’s story.

The Texas Observer Magazine carried an excellent review of the book. To read it, just click here.

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Washington DC’s National Cathedral is one of the great treasures of our time and our nation. Construction started in 1907 and was completed in 1990.

When Joanne and I toured the place many years ago, we learned the cathedral contains more than 200 stained glass windows.

Because the sunlight changes continually (with the time of day and seasons of the year), the quality and color of light never create the same effect or feel.

The light represents the Presence of God. The building is stone, but the light is living and active. It moves, shifts, surprises. It refuses to be managed. The light makes the cathedral what it is.

The best thing I saw this week was a gorgeous time-lapse video of the light in the National Cathedral. Treat yourself; take four minutes to watch it. Just click here.

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The best thing I saw about actor Robert Duvall, who died this past Sunday, was Robert Duvall Left No Seams by Giancarlo Sopo, writing in National Review:

“Robert Duvall didn’t belong to any era of Hollywood. He preceded New Hollywood, thrived in it, and outlasted it. He was a Mafia lawyer, a surfing colonel, a ruthless network executive, a country drunk, a Pentecostal preacher, a Texas Ranger. In none of them could you find the seams. He never gave you a ‘Duvall performance.’ He delivered a character, and then he disappeared.”

Sopa recalled Duvall’s 1983 film, Tender Mercies (one of my all-time favorite movies), in which he played Mac Sledge, “a washed-up country singer who finds God through a small Baptist Church in rural Texas.” Sopa nicely summarized Sledge: “He could hold grace and grief in the same hand.”

I also loved what Sopa wrote about Duvall making The Apostle. “He said the film grew out of visiting a small church in Hughes, Ark., where ‘with no warning something awakened within me that had always been there, dormant and untouched until that day.’”

Both films capture the same theme: Sometimes you have to stumble and fall before you can rise. Duvall wore that idea better than anyone else I’ve ever seen. He walked through our times; but he was never defined by them. He always seemed to have a North Star that kept him oriented as he passed through our universe.

To read the Sopa piece on Duvall, just click here. (subscription may be required)

And if you want to watch Duvall in action, click here for a trailer to Tender Mercies.

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Roman Catholic priest Father Ron Rohlheiser has written a very sensitive, wise, and radiant look at silence. It’s the best thing I saw or heard this week. To read it, just click here.

Father Ron writes beautifully, “Silence is a language that’s deeper, more far-reaching, more understanding, more compassionate, and more eternal than any other language. In heaven, it seems, there will be no languages, no words. Silence will speak. We will wholly, intimately, and ecstatically understand each other and hold each other in silence. Ironically, for all their importance, words are part of the reason we can’t fully do this already. Words unite but they also divide. There’s a deeper connection available in silence.”

He also recalls John of the Cross’s “…wonderfully cryptic line: Learn to understand more by not understanding than by understanding.”

Please take a few minutes to settle into this soaring and reorienting essay. It could nudge the direction of your life.

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Sean Dietrich of “Sean of the South” has written another gem of a column. The Miracle Drug begins with—“In the summer of 2099, researchers developed a new groundbreaking drug. When ingested this new medication impaired one’s ability to judge others.”

As he further explains, “Once you ingested the little pink pill, you lost the urge to qualify anything as good or bad, right or wrong, positive or negative.”

Being a humorist, he imagines how modern societies were crippled by this no judgement, no hate drug.

Besides being a lot of fun, he also makes you think. To read it, just click The Miracle Drug.

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Jay Nordlinger is a journalist, music critic, and author of four books. As one of my favorite writers, he is consistently humane, fair, kind, considerate, and thoughtful.

One of his latest Substack columns, When You Gotta Go, digs deep into the dynamics of elimination in our society. Only Nordlinger could give such delightful and helpful views of potty breaks, places, and manners.

He writes, “…it’s so human, this issue—this, you know: need. It’s painfully, starkly human. Anyone can relate.”

Yes, anyone can relate. I’ve often thought about the irony of pride. Several times a day, presidents and popes and prima-donnas experience a ritual that reminds us of our commonality with every other human. What more could our Creator have done to remind us to humble ourselves?

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For quite a while now, I’ve been living in the 18th century, immersed in David McCullough’s book on John Adams and the American Revolution.

John Adams is not a biography; it’s a rich and vivid history of Adams and other founding fathers who risked death for their treasonous acts. Reading John Adams pushed emotional buttons I didn’t know I have.

This story of sacrifice, resilience, and achievements against enormous odds, gives us portraits of those who would not quit! Readers will understand why it won the Pulitzer Prize.

I hope you’ll take 3:00 minutes to watch this video of McCullough explaining why George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams, and many others matter. Not only in their time, but in ours too.

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I will always be grateful to Glen Roachelle for introducing me to the poem Waiting by John Burroughs. Today, I pass it on to you dear friends and subscribers.

In just 24 lines, the poem carries uncommon depths of trust, rest, and assurance. It calls us to rest in our destiny. After all, there is nothing we can do to stop, slow, or speed what awaits us.

I hope you will find 95 seconds over the coming days to turn aside into this reorienting verse. To listen to it, just click here.

Of course, I’d love to know your own thoughts about Waiting.

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Some new readers of The Timberline Letter may not realize that each week we present two posts.

1. The primary posting—High Country Commentary—delivers a new essay from the staff and guest writers behind The Timberline Letter.

2. The second essay—Seen and Heard—comes from other artists. We “saw and heard” newness through their poems, articles, photos, sculptures, etc.

For the first Seen and Heard column of 2026, we turn to something Sean Dietrich wrote a few days ago. “An Appalachian Winter” pulls our eyes to a young mother shopping with her children at Walmart.

Dietrich sees the details and degrees of their poverty:

• “Some children aren’t wearing coats, although it’s snowing.”

• “She doesn’t think anyone notices her eyeing the price tags, performing incredible feats of mental math which only the Have-Nots are capable of.”

• “... she buys a pair of adult work gloves because these are cheaper than children’s mittens.”

But then something stunning, a radically joyful moment arrives. Right there in Walmart, a miracle floats down and settles upon that poor family. We see their lives will never be the same.

When I read this glimpse of walking into a brand-new life, I saw possibilities for 2026. What if we all walked expectantly, knowing that God is kind and generous? How would life be if we treated others with a cheerful countenance, smiled as we engaged them in aisle ten, and pushed through and past the shadows of despair?

I hope you will take two minutes to read Dietrich’s An Appalachian Winter. It could change your life. We would all love to read your thoughts.

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I discovered the western singers and poets, Don Edwards, Red Steagall, and Waddie Mitchell in 1994 when we lived in the Washington, DC area.

Having grown up in south-central Kansas, those guys really spoke to me, especially Don Edwards’ recording of The Old Cow Man. In beautiful, flowing, simple words, it tells the other story of civilization …

While progress toots her greedy horn And makes her motor buzz, I thanks the Lord I wasn’t born no later than I was.

Months later, on a trip to Kansas, I played The Old Cow Man for my dad, who was surely slipping away. He just closed his eyes and reclined in his chair. Dad never uttered a sound, but a solitary tear rolled down his leathery right cheek. I so wished I could have known his thoughts.

Yesterday, I heard Edwards’ recording of it again. And again it recalled the sheer beauty of that wondrous piece of poetry. It is simply too good to keep to myself.

Please take a few minutes to listen to this masterful presentation of The Old Cow Man. I invite you to let us know your thoughts.

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The best thing we saw this week was an article by Sean Dietrich (Sean of the South) about a festive gathering of fathers (inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary) with their daughters.

The men got to join their daughters for an evening of tuxedos, evening gowns, music, dancing, pink flowers, land lots of tears.

This moving story gives the human details of Goethe’s fine quote, “Treat an individual as he is, and he will remain as he is. But if you treat him as he ought to be, he will become what he ought to be.”

Take a break. Read Dietrich’s A Holiday Inside Angola.

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John Madden and Pat Summerall worked together for twenty-two years. From the very beginning of their collaboration, they became friends.

Summerall’s death in April 2016 called Madden, the famous, rumpled, and retired NFL coach, to stand in a new role: reminding his audience of the quality of a man.

And he did so in a ten-minute tribute.

Besides the humor and the tears, Madden also reveals the grit, grind, and glory of a long working relationship. We consider the microphones without the voices.

This eulogy is real as rain and well-worth ten minutes of your life.

The best thing we’ve seen or heard this week comes from Sean Dietrich. “The Golden Standard” takes a kaleidoscopic look at the most perfect law ever conceived. Spoken by Jesus, it is almost universally known as “The Golden Rule.”

Perhaps Eugene Peterson’s THE MESSAGE translates it best. “Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get.” (Matthew 7:12)

Exquisite.

Dietrich runs through the various ways in which that simple rule gets interpreted around the world and throughout history. In addition to the Bible, we read it as an ancient African proverb, as it was seen in Mayan civilization, and through Plato, Islam, Buddhism, Seneca, and other voices.

The point is NOT that Jesus needs cultural or historical support; it is that we see this golden rule splashed across history and within every square inch of the universe.

Dietrich is known as a humorist. And he will make you laugh. He’ll also make you think. To read this short and glowing view of The Golden Rule, just go here.