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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

We tend to rather blithely categorize times of crisis simply as happenstance occurrences that reflect the frequently volatile and somewhat unpredictable nature of life.  Because we tend to conceptualize crisis in this manner, we readily place times of crisis in this convenient “us-versus-them” category so that our focus is on managing the crisis … [Read more...]

What do you say during times of crisis like these?  You want to say something revelatory and deeply meaningful to buoy the spirits of people and give them sufficient hope to lean into the challenges wrought of the crisis and valiantly press through them.  You want people to be reflective in a way that they are not during the calmer times so that … [Read more...]

Fear – How We Create It Fear.  We all have it.  Sometimes it’s just this slight apprehension, or this bit of inner angst, or this uncomfortable twinge that we experience.  At other times it’s utterly overwhelming, leaving us helplessly paralyzed and violently shaken right down to the core of everything that we are.  At certain times and in … [Read more...]

Easter is time of new beginnings.  More than that however, it is a time when we renew our belief in new beginnings. In a world of harsh endings and abrupt conclusions, Easter reminds us that there is always something new on the horizon even if we can no longer see a horizon.  Easter is a promise that no ending, regardless of how decisive it … [Read more...]

There is that exhilaratingly incessant drive within us, that unidentified but entirely electrifying spark, that rogue passion that is part of us but whose larger part is so expansive that it seems not to be part of us at all.  There are feelings that completely defy our capacity to create, but not our ability to feel.  There is a seemingly … [Read more...]