“You spoke your words as though you denied the very existence of the shadows or of evil. Think, now: where would your good be if there were no evil and what would the world look like without shadow? Shadows are thrown by people and things. There’s the shadow of my…

Walking Across Nashoba — Stow Part 1 On a typical weekday morning, my family experiences the rush of getting children awake, dressed, and fed before heading…meisterkassner.medium.com Bob and I soon make a left turn onto Heritage Lane, which provides an excellent example of a newer housing development in Stow and how it connects to the rural tradition and nearby conservation areas of the town. The houses were built in the late 1990s on one acre lots…

On a typical weekday morning, my family experiences the rush of getting children awake, dressed, and fed before heading off to school. My commute to Nashoba Regional High School, with a quick detour to drop my daughter off at Luther Burbank Middle School in Lancaster takes about fifteen minutes. From…

Mount Discover Part 3 Mount Discovery Part 1 It was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. My children had already returned to school, but not me, not this year. About…meisterkassner.medium.com Mount Discovery Part 2 meisterkassner.medium.com As I crest the final ridge, the vista toward the East encompassing the Champlain Valley, Lake Champlain, and the Green Mountains of Vermont was obscured. Clouds shrouded the higher peaks, and Lake Champlain was completely lost in a sea of fog. The earlier saltwater Champlain Sea…

Mount Discovery Part 1 It was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. My children had already returned to school, but not me, not this year. About…meisterkassner.medium.com The saddle is a peaceful flat area of woods in between Mount Discovery to the Northeast and Rattlesnake Mountain to the South. After the relatively steep climb up the ravine and to the top of the ridge, the saddle provided a nice respite. I paused to take a breath and…

It was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. My children had already returned to school, but not me, not this year. About seven in the morning, I found a well-worn walking stick in the coat room of my grandparent’s house. I moved quietly, conscious that my aunt and uncle were…

Even when our dreams turn into nightmares, they still contain the seeds of new beginnings. — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. insisted that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” We can find inspiration from his life and teaching to endure through times of darkness and hopelessness. Yet his many disappointments and assassination remind us of the difficulty of the…

From George Washington to Donald Trump — Thanksgiving is especially challenging in 2020. The surging pandemic, bitter partisan and racial divides, and collective mourning for the 250,000 victims of Covid-19 have dampened moods and soured appetites. Large family feasts have been canceled or are preceding despite official warnings and significant risk. Yet gratitude is most resonant in…

That the Pilgrims Signed their Lives Away. November 11, 2020 marks the four hundredth anniversary of the Mayflower’s landing at Provincetown on Cape Cod. (The actual anniversary is November 21st in the Gregorian calendar) While newspapers, politicians, and historians debate the true origins of the United States. …