It seems that the idea of taking a stand is perpetually taking a beating.  The whole idea of taking a stand is driven by the conviction that at certain times the need to take a stand is unarguably undeniable and inescapably inescapable.  Taking a stand is taking a risk, and sometimes a big one.  Unfortunately, not many people take a stand.  But … [Read more...]

I often think about what I would say to the world.  In the pain, confusion, fear, and rampant disorientation…what would I say?  With the deceit, the manipulation, the less than admirable agendas being floated on all fronts…what would I say?  With marriages fracturing under the weight of a culture gone rogue, with teenagers taking their lives before … [Read more...]

There is no God.  It’s not an unfamiliar statement.  In fact, it permeates much of our modern thinking, which begs the question if our modern thinking is really either ‘modern’ or ‘thinking.’ We Don’t Want a God I think that the mentality that ‘there is no God’ is centered primarily on the fact that we don’t want a God.  Therefore, out of … [Read more...]

We hear a lot of things.  A whole lot of things.  We’re incessantly bombarded with sheets and shards and streams of information.  It’s about bits and bytes and boatloads of data that we ingest and digest without even realizing that we’re doing that.  Either consciously or unconsciously we compile all of that sordid stuff into some sort of choppy … [Read more...]

Am I paying attention?  As this thing called life moves ‘round about me, and I move ‘round about within it, am I paying attention to it all?  Am I paying attention, or have I unwittingly confused a host of other behaviors and habits as paying attention?  Am I paying attention, or have I adopted certain views or biases as ready templates that I slap … [Read more...]

We reap what we sow.  In other words, what we do is never free of an outcome that will be shaped by what we do.  The ‘cause-and-effect’ of life is such that what we do will always cause an outcome that is fashioned directly by what we do.  Despite the fact that we often think (or would prefer to think) that what we do is somehow isolated to the … [Read more...]

Do we search for the truth, or do we search for ways around the truth?  Do we even take the time to consider a question like that out of the long-held assumption that we are, in fact, looking for the truth because (we assume) that that’s the obvious thing to do?  What insanity would behoove us to do anything less?  But do we search for the truth, … [Read more...]

What is a warrior?  Who are these combatants who take up arms in whatever way that they take them up?  The shared sense is that a warrior is someone who engages in battle.  That’s quite different from a terrorist who holds that the perceived virtue of the cause justifies the slaughter of the innocent, or someone who runs hard with psychopathic … [Read more...]

We are humans.  All of us.  And while we come from different cultures, and hold different beliefs, and embrace a variety of traditions…we are human.  Our dress may vary, our economics might be quite different, the language that we speak may be entirely unknown to others, and we may well be spread far across the socio-economic spectrum…but we are … [Read more...]