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...]

What would I do with a new start?  I mean a really new, ‘new’ start?  Not something that looks new because we’ve vigorously spit-shined something that’s old to a new luster.  Not some radical make-over of something that’s radically old so that it looks convincingly new.  Not a meticulous restoration that’s going to erase the footprints of time and … [Read more...]

We stand on the escarpment of a New Year.  In many ways, it seems that what lies ahead doesn’t rally us with energizing hope, but rather it seems to rattle us with deep apprehension.  From the vantage point we stand on at the beginning of this New Year, the landscape that lies ahead looks uncertain at best and disastrous at worst.  We see a world … [Read more...]

She was born into an emerging America in 1890.  Through the ninety-five years of life that stood in front of her she would watch an Industrial Revolution unfold, Henry Ford roll out the Model T, and Edison light the world.  She would read the headlines of dough boys marching off to fight a Kaiser in what was originally called the ‘Great War’.  Some … [Read more...]

With the New Year we long for a fresh start.  We want to wipe the slate clean, removing the smudges and the smears.  We want to get rid of the errors, the poor choices, the misguided decisions and the bruising flops that populated the previous year.  We want to wipe away old habits, clean up destructive behaviors, sponge up toxic relationships, run … [Read more...]

Rescue.  It is hard to admit that we need to be rescued.  We think ourselves to be smart enough, cunning enough, strategic enough, and enough of whatever it is that we need to be enough of to save ourselves.  We tediously craft an endless array of things to rescue us from the things that we previously crafted to rescue us that ended up stranding … [Read more...]

Have we forgotten Christmas?  Or more tragically, have we never really known it at all?  Have we embraced some pathetic derivative that is but a thin and emaciated shadow of something that we have found intimidating and demanding because of how grand it is?  And so, do we diminish great stories out of our fear of them?  More frighteningly, do we … [Read more...]

Some thirty years ago, I was given the opportunity to be a part of the reclamation of a gorgeous seventy-three room colonial-style mansion, as well as the property and numerous out-buildings that were part of this massive, rolling estate.  It had set empty, hauntingly still and seemingly comatose for several decades, with suffocating layers of … [Read more...]

Sometimes life is much more about reflection than solving problems.  Sometimes it does us good just to watch, and in the watching discover the undiscovered.  In the discovering, to then savor what we discovered.  Sometimes we would do well to simply soak up this thing we call "life" rather than dissect it, attempt to control it and in doing so both … [Read more...]

It is worthy to note those things upon which we wage war.  There are those completely virtuous and entirely untainted causes that are birthed at those seminal moments when the very foundation of the whole of our existence is suddenly teetering on some precarious precipice.  Indeed, in every generation there are those utterly horrifying moments when … [Read more...]