Life has a way of walloping us; something like a train hurtling out of nowhere and we just happen to be standing on the tracks.  Sometimes the hit is expected as we've seen it coming from a long ways off.  Many times it's not expected at all.  Sometimes it might be entirely justified, being the natural outcome of our poor choices or lax attitude or … [Read more...]

There are those deeply magical places that we all recall as a kid; those places that seem misty, mysteriously surreal and yet warmly captivating.  Those places that you’d love to savor again, even if you know they weren’t quite as real as you had imagined them being.  If you’re lucky enough, they continue to hold some small bit of magic even as an … [Read more...]

We’re building memorials every day.  Whether we realize it or not, or whether think about it or not we’re very much involved in the business of building memorials, and we’re doing it every single day.  The memorials that we’re building are the ones that will be about our lives.  Every choice, every decision, every action, every inaction, every … [Read more...]

In large part, Memorial Day has devolved into a weekend that represents the onset of the summer season.  It’s something like the starting gun at the beginning of a race.  It’s the day that officially frees us from the doldrums of winter and gives us some sort of permission to play for the next three months or so until Labor Day reminds us that it’s … [Read more...]

I grew up under the tutelage of a generation who faced the depravity of the Great Depression and then fought through the horrors of World War II.  The deep sense of patriotism and solemn respect for our country ran high among these great people. Therefore, as Memorial Day once again rolls around on the calendar, I find it appropriate to take a … [Read more...]

Cleaning; it’s the upkeep side of life.  It’s the irritating drudgery that’s always following us with broom in hand.  Cleaning is the voracious vacuum that’s never satisfied, the frantic feather duster that spews more dust than it captures, and the less than palatable reality that things don’t clean themselves.  The imagery is one of a collection … [Read more...]

For some, Mother’s Day comes full of rich memories and wonderfully cherished moments.  For others, it arrives with something far less meaningful and far more painful.  However it comes, we all have a Mother.  And the nature of our relationship with our Mother’s varies immensely.  Regardless of the nature or state of it, there is within each of us a … [Read more...]

Over the years I have been privileged to write an extensive array of books, articles, blogs and quotes.  During special times of the year, I search these writings for quotes to both enrich and enlarge our celebration of that particular season. For Mother's Day, I have selected a handful of quotations that express the power, importance and wonder … [Read more...]

“Who am I?”  The question seems a bit overused these days.  It’s something more like a vogue, trendy kind of question that pulls us out of the doldrums of living among the masses and plants us in the more desirable currents of the intellectual mainstream.  The question suggests that we’re exercising our intellectual acumen to probe our existence, … [Read more...]

Particularly at times like these, there appears to be this morbid and seemingly trance-like focus on all that’s wrong in our world.  This negative focus generates a debilitating sense of hopelessness that seems to exponentially grow to catastrophic proportions and beyond. We need to be painfully honest about the difficulties in our world, for to … [Read more...]