“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the…
The idea of catching up is tantalizing. I use this phrase often in two contexts; catching up with someone I haven’t spoken with in some time, and catching up on work that’s piled up in my work or personal ambition buckets. This week I did a fair amount of catching up in both contexts. But…
You might say it was doubling down on trivia. A local pub hosts a trivia night contest in Rhode Island. I met family there to participate. I’ve done this before, but the crowd seemed bigger this time, as if people are eager to get out in the world again, variants be damned. I understood all…
Every tree, every growing thing as it grows, says this truth, You harvest what you sow. With life as short as a half-taken breath, do not plant anything but love. — Rumi, Every Tree I had lunch with a man of Ukrainian descent. He spoke with love for his old home, before he came to…
We treat our plans as though they are a lasso, thrown from the present around the future, in order to bring it under our command. But all a plan is—all it could ever possibly be—is a present-moment statement of intent. It’s an expression of your current thoughts about how you’d ideally like to deploy your…
“We are the sum of all the moments in our lives – all that is ours is in them: we cannot escape it or conceal it.” — Thomas Wolfe The interesting thing about seeing is that you can’t go back to being oblivious to the world around you. More to the point, you learn to…
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoingand rightdoing there is a field.I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grassthe world is too full to talk about.— Rumi There’s no secret that the world feels more divisive, more aligned against the perceived slights, threats or opinions of another group. But then you read a…
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan! (Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!) – François Villon, Ballade des dames du temps jadis We’re all a bit tired, aren’t we? Tired of the pandemic, tired of political deviants and extremists, tired of people not caring about the environment or really anything but themselves. Tired of things…
Ships go sailingFar across the seaTrusting starlightTo get where they need to be— Josh Groban, Believe A challenging couple of years brings us back to Christmas morning 2021. We know it’s not over just yet, this pandemic, but we have optimism for the year ahead. Tempered by other challenges in the world, other realities at…
And I won’t feel the flowing of the time when I’m goneAll the pleasures of love will not be mine when I’m goneMy pen won’t pour a lyric line when I’m goneSo I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here.– Phil Ochs, When I’m Gone It’s that time of year—the mad shift towards…