Archive for November, 2017

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I can be ferocious if I want to.

I ran across a note in my file from August 2013. Although it was written over four years ago, there is an uncanny aspect to its application for today and may affect the design of our lives tomorrow. In light of today’s climate in almost any segment of American society—politics, entertainment, and religion to name three—there is a pervasive attitude pregnant with outsized self-importance. This shaded truth is explained as an alternate reality as though one phenomena can have more than one factually based truth. Claiming something to be true and factual when it is only my interpretation is claiming authority I don’t possess. (more…)

fullsizeoutput_575There are times when I still think Barbara, my wife of forty-five years, is in the room. I almost say something to her, but when I look around she’s not there. Then the loss and the pain of it washes over me anew. After many years of her presence, five years of her absence has not erased the emptiness that arrived expectantly but undesired on September 27, 2012 when she died after being ill for over two years. Michael Piazza, pastor of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City wrote in a recent post in reference to the loss of his husband, “My experience has been that the adage ‘time heals all wounds’ is probably a lie.”

Barbara and I began dating in the last year of graduate school, were engaged by graduation, and married a year later. Over the years, we lived in three U.S. states and four countries on two (more…)

kaleid.A kaleidoscope, the kind shaped like a hand-held telescope, contains pieces of material, each a different color. The viewer looks through the lens like looking through a telescope and sees a colorful pattern through two or more reflective surfaces. As the instrument is turned, the colorful patterns change. 

Consider each color in your kaleidoscope represents someone you’ve met. As you meet someone new, you add a new color. Then, consider each turn of the kaleidoscope a new day. Suddenly the pieces in your life align in such a way that a new pattern emerges. The new piece(s) added the day before now appear in the design next to pieces you may have had all your life. (more…)

Life ChallengesSomeone asked me recently what my blog was all about. I directed him to the “About” page on the blog and then gave him the short answer “How people shape their lives and how their lives are shaped by external influence.” Here is a longer answer: (more…)