James D. Hogan

Salvation Belongs

On November 1, 2026

I have been on the road for a long weekend trip visiting family in New Jersey. Driving to Charlotte Wednesday morning, the sun coming up over the ridge, I was struck by the late October foliage, brilliant: every autumnal shade cast aglow in dewy, golden light–burnt orange and red, deep burgundy, bright yellow to brass.

The fall colors were arriving at their sensational peak after weeks and weeks of waiting through a long, hot summer that stretched its airs well into late September. Part of me hated to leave, to miss seeing the handful of days that the forest covering these ancient mountains puts on such a show. There was rain in the forecast for the weekend, and it never takes much to bring it all to a delicate end.

But I don’t get many windows to take off for long weekend trips like these. Time is precious, and schedules are busy. All the more important to understand the gift it is to come back here, to see loved ones while there’s still time to visit.

In the Cleft

By James D. Hogan

On October 18, 2026

In writing

Annie ran a fever last night. She woke up feeling cool and much better, but we’re at home this Sunday morning. It was a cold start–the coldest all of this early autumn season–and a light frost fell. Even so, the sun was up over the mountain by the time I had my second cup of coffee, and I bundled up and sat outside on the deck, the sun full on my face, and shut my eyes, and marveled at the orange glow of my eyelids.

The lectionary reading this morning led me to Exodus. In the thirty-third chapter, Moses is up on the mountain, again, meeting with God. From far away, the Israelites simply see Moses go to his meeting place with God, a place where a thick cloud surrounds.

This is long after Moses led his people out of Egypt, after the plagues, after Moses threw his staff to the ground and watched it turn into a serpent. After God held back the waters of the sea for the Israelites, only to let them cascade back inward to drown their persecutors.

This is a real human being writing to you.

By James D. Hogan

On September 30, 2026

In writing

Granted, I’m typing on a computer, beaming these words from the kitchen bar where I’m drinking coffee, over the wifi, across the great beyond to my website, which dutifully records and posts them somewhere, and presumably you are out there somewhere, reading this on a device of your choosing, a laptop or phone, reading line after line against the glare of an LED screen.

But I am a human, and so are you.

At least, dear readers, that’s true for most of you, or hopefully much of you. There’s an analytics plugin installed on my website that suggests at least a handful of you are bots. Not actual robots, of course, just a thing that scrapes my site, which I think means makes a copy, tucking it away somewhere. It conjures up a funny idea that out in the electron cloud that is this website and all the websites in existence, I have a little devoted following of robot readers. A robot fan club, perhaps. And that they occasionally stop by to see what I’ve been up to.