Can we sequence the DNA of goodness? Does the goodness gnome even exist? The falling “Newton’s apple” that triggered this for me, was the onset of autumn. Standing on the doorstep of winter’s sleep is strangely invigorating. Autumn is the season when everything does a lingering waltz toward dormancy and death. But even while prepping […]
Humor hurts. Why do you think they call it a “punch line”? True story. High winds contributed to a huge multi-vehicle pile-up on a major thoroughfare near our house during a big outdoor event with parades and pageantry. It was like this: An 18-wheeler jackknifed in gale-force winds, strewing its cargo of bananas, cream pies […]
The seeker puts a wish “out there” and the universe scurries to help. It works too. Except for the exceptions. I did my master’s thesis on cross-cultural communication while hitchhiking through Mexico, Central and South America. It was an audacious undertaking that began with a Broadway quality song-and-dance sales pitch to my grad school department […]
After you pass on, you have no control over the kinds of monuments people make to remember you by. I hope I fare better than Shelley’s statue. On 8 July 1822, less than a month before his 30th birthday, Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned in a sudden storm while sailing off the northwest coast of Italy […]
We Need Sacred Spaces as much as We Need the Gym There are just a few things I would like to suggest airports around the world offer in addition to the food and duty free shopping. First of all, I would like a gym. How much happier would passengers be if they could release endorphins […]
The relationship I have with hunting is, “it’s complicated,” as they say in the social media. I have Bambi issues. Best shot in the family with iron sights, was Mom. She stilled her breathing and heartbeat to mimic a cave dweller frozen in a glacier. When we were younger our whole family went out shooting. […]
He was drawn to the ocean with the soul of a poet and the heart of a lover. A few times I sat on a boat with Rev. Sun Myung Moon, fishing at the “tuna grounds” off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts. He usually went out around dawn, fished all day and boated home in the […]
And really, who wouldn’t rather sink than call Brad for help? Roy Lichtenstein’s iconic oil painting from 1963, Drowning Girl, nails contemporary teen romance like no other work of art. With Brad’s name on her lips she arrives on the beach, fresh as a peach blossom, perky as a fruit pie (whatever) and there is Brad […]
What good is art if it cannot be of service to love? We all know what goo-goo-eyed love is, but love also means reconciling the entire world and turning enemies into family. It’s a lot of territory to cover in a few lines, and this poem which began as my personal expression of passion, does […]
Anyone who is one in heart with God is one in heart with everyone else who is one in heart with God. I was in Manila fighting sin. (Anyone who fights sin, by the way, spends most of the time fighting their own. That’s just the way we’re built.) But that’s not what this is […]
