{This essay was written in 2017, but in the days of coronavirus seems timely to re-share. The thoughts and questions feel current. "What is the third way, the third stance and synthesis, that might help us ascend from this time having learned and evolved in important ways?"} You could say I am fond of animals; [...]
Why Spiritual Ritual?* Learning to kneel took decades. It was not something I did in my upbringing; and before I could kneel, I needed to know why. Now I kneel at a communion rail each Sunday as I take in my hands a small wafer and drink a swallow of wine from a common silver [...]
A clip from my audio journal about ego wrestling, and learning to surrender to growth.
I have a hunch we are steeped in enchantment, unawares. That just beyond the scrim of our distracted, worried, pre-frontal-cortex-bound lives, are goings on (vivid and undeterred by our inability to see) that we would not want to miss—if only we knew we had choice in the matter. In a way, quantum physicists are introducing [...]
Dear Graduate Congratulations! Today, you graduate. You may be graduating with honors or by the skin of your proverbial teeth. You may even receive an empty diploma cover, your graduation contingent on summer school. Throughout your life you are not going to care. You won’t care if you have five tasseled cords around your neck, [...]
Among my vivid early memories is a betrayal. I was in seventh grade, at a middle-school Halloween dance, dressed in the football uniform I’d borrowed from the boy I liked. The year prior, my best friend—the most cherished friend of my youth—moved away. But that weekend she was in town and showed up at the [...]
In the weeks since the explosions of ‘Me Too’, I’ve taken time to reflect on my own recollections. Though I’m fortunate to have not experienced sexual harassment in my professional life, I have experienced abuse in personal relationships—and have written about that elsewhere. In my professional life what I have witnessed are ways men acknowledge [...]