Author: Cameron J. Anderson

The morning fog was settled so thickly the first day of October that approaching headlights appeared without warning. Best to take it slow as I found my way along the paved country road. Nine miles south of Madison I turned onto a gravel drive toward Dottie’s Ranch. Left and right, sepia-toned grasses leaned against the…

“Cam,” Lucian asks, “How many crates are you making today?” “Two,” I say. The seven-year-old’s math-mind whirrs. “So,” he continues, “when you finish these you will have 18, right? Then you only need to make… 11 more?” From mid-summer to early fall, crate making was my avocation and Lucian’s calculations and encouragement proved constant. Sometimes…

The Oxford English Dictionary identifies “redux” as an adjective that means “brought back, restored; experienced or considered for a second time; revisited.” In ancient Rome, Fortuna Redux, thought to be the goddess of chance, was associated with safe homecomings, good fortune, and bountiful blessing. After posting my June 2024 essay titled Porcelain, a few hours…

Notes from the Studio At age twelve I asked my father if I might have a drawer in his filing cabinet. I imagined gathering all my things and ideas . . . shoebox collections, roadmaps, summer camp mementoes, clippings from LIFE Magazine . . . in one place. For even then I sensed that the…

Truly, it was an accident. In a moment of juvenile horseplay I slammed into the glass shelves mounted on our dining room wall and sent Mom’s entire collection of porcelain teacups and saucers crashing to the floor…

“How do you like my collection?” Unsolicited, the man’s question is a bemused accusation. Stopping to grab morning coffee, I had parked next to a tired Malibu and he’d seen me peering through its windows…

Dear Sister-in-Law Dawn, Detritus, the word, has attitude, and I am confident you introduced the term to me. The way I remember it…

By Cameron Anderson Our father was failing. So we, his six children with three spouses, quickly gathered at Congregational Home. It was a Sunday morning. Arriving in ones and twos, we signed in at the registration desk of his assisted living facility and made our way down the familiar hallway to Dad’s room. He was…

By Cameron Anderson The watercolor sketch above is a plein-air rendering of Rover Island. I painted it on a rainy June afternoon in 1991. According to locals, Rover has never been settled. It belongs to an archipelago of 36 islands—the Les Cheneaux Islands—that string along the southward side of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula near the Canadian…

By Cameron Anderson In 2009 the painter Bruce Herman’s father and mother, William and Ruth Herman, died without warning. As an act of tender remembrance he completed Painting of the Artist’s Father in 2010 and in 2011, Painting of the Artist’s Mother. Bruce explains, “Those paintings of my deceased parents opened a path for me…

By Cameron J. Anderson Once there was a way to get back homeward,Once there was a way to get back home,Sleep pretty darling, do not cry,And I will sing a lullaby.—Paul McCartney, Golden Slumbers Lifelong, Sir Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) was employed as a clerk helping to produce the official record of the Parliament. But he…

By Cameron Anderson It was my wife, C. K., who christened the first day of December “December Fool’s Day.” December 1st is my birthday, and those who know C. K. will recognize the pronouncement as evidence of her affection and wit. As our family grew, we paused each year between Thanksgiving feasting and the playing…

By Cameron Anderson Especially in recent months it’s been all the fashion to deconstruct one’s faith, to wake up to the Church’s many problems and incongruities and conclude that earlier theological and ecclesial commitments are now inadequate, even mistaken. Amid all of this unraveling, a workshop held at Upper House on Saturday, October 21,stimulated fresh…

By Cameron Anderson Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after the wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.—Ecclesiastes 2:11 From birth, Bible-believing churches had been my spiritual home, but when I…

By Cameron Anderson Plant gardens, eat what they produce.—From a letter to the exiles in Babylon, Jeremiah 29:5 The opening chapters of Genesis attempt nothing less than to describe the beginnings of the whole created order. But within this grand theological narrative we also gain insight into the blessing and burden of work. Genesis 1:1-2:4 and…

By Cameron Anderson The heavens are telling the glory of God;and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.Day to day pours forth speech,and night to night declares knowledge.—Psalm 19:1-2 (NRSV) Promoters described the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Fair as an “Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music” and that August more than 400,000 concertgoers swarmed…