CARRY ON
My first memory is of my father. It was a little over a month before my third birthday. He woke me in the middle of the night, with an air of hushed excitement, and carried me across the street to…
POINT OF PRIDE
Several years ago, I wrote an affirmation to share on a Sunday morning. It’s still one of my favorites: Yes, as a matter of fact, I am God’s gift to the world.And so are we all. I don’t remember what,…
WAIT A MINUTE
When I open up my phone, sometimes I’ll find myself on a screen of “widgets” — little quick-look interactive previews of news headlines, my step-count, to-do lists, whatever’s up-next on my podcasts… stuff like that. I don’t think I ever…
HOWLING WOLVES AND HUSH PUPPIES
I don’t remember when I started adding a wolf howl to the end of my prayers. And to the end of some songs at Sunday services. And whenever I want to punctuate something. It’s not every time, but it’s become…
CARTS BEFORE THE SOURCE
I read a piece by Seth Godin in which he asserted, “The biggest thing you bring to any project is FORWARD.” It’s kind of a weird way of phrasing it, but I totally get what he meant. “Forward” is first…
DON’T I KNOW US FROM SOMEWHERE?
Several years ago, I had a delightful exchange with a woman in a dance class at Maple Street. She looked so familiar to me — this striking redhead with a great smile who really knew how to shake her groove…
MERCY ME
The dynamic tension between independence and mutual responsibility has been part of the human psyche for… I don’t know, maybe forever. It was fundamental to our evolutionary development as a species — homo sapiens wouldn’t have made it very far…
BARREL OF MONKEYS
When I was about fifteen years old, I decided that religion was a soul-sucking dead-end. This decision was a big shift and it came out of nowhere, as far as I recall. I’d been a happy churchgoer my entire life,…
JUMP THE SHARK
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the idea of “jumping the shark.” It refers to the 5th season of the TV show Happy Days. In a 1977 episode, the ever-cool character of the Fonz, answering a challenge to his…
HEAVEN ALL THE WAY
A few weeks ago, I was grumbling about something. I don’t remember what it was. Something was coming up and I wasn’t looking forward to it. I declared, “I’m going to hate it, I’m going to be miserable.” I caught…