Friendship is: sympathy, favored, helper, patron, supporter, goodwill, intimacy, special, connection, built. Ideally, friendship should bring joy and enrichment to both parties. Friendship is the sharing of dreams, of all of life’s experiences. To a Friend, 1994 For my friend I could be my utmost self. I could travel the earth, come out of my […]
Love is: adoration, worship, yearning, affection, tenderness, beloved, dear, appreciation, cherished, a treasure, devotion, regard, making giant leaps. Love makes you feel connected and hyper-alive. It is caring for another person or thing actively, without regard to its emotional or physical cost. Love is endless potential, but it must be cared for and maintained
Love Meditation: thoughts on love Read More »
This is a personal question, and I think there is no one right answer as to what constitutes your personal values. What matters most to you is what matters most for you. To be able to truly create a life with meaning, you have to be honest with yourself as to what you think is/are
Personal Values: What matters most in life? Read More »
One of the most thrilling things as a serious reader is to come across a work, fiction or nonfiction, that feels kindred to yourself. It is as if you could have written the book, or at least a flimsy facsimile. James Wood’s The Nearest Thing to Life is such a book for me. He writes
Nearest thing: reading as spiritual practice Read More »
I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking/meditating on how we are all connected. The most basic and obvious is that we are all connected simply by being alive on the same planet. I remind myself of this whenever I start to feel judgmental or start feeling a little superior or inferior to someone else. It
Connections are everywhere: the universal, natural language Read More »
Attachment is: adherence, faithful, loyal, devout, staunch, steadfast, constant, pious, adhesion, firmness, allegiance, love, affection, fondness, connected, stuck. Attachment is the state of being firmly affixed to someone or something. Our culture has long celebrated attachments of various kinds: romantic love, family loyalty, even attachment to our faith and beliefs. In our present society we
Probably the greatest writer’s crush I have ever had on anyone has been on Virginia Woolf. She combines a poetic sensibility with a modern point of view; she celebrates the small moments in life by painting with a very large brush. All of her novels are basically explorations of the same extended metaphor, the tide
Writer’s Crush: Virginia Woolf Read More »
In the big snow storm yesterday, I got 23″ at my house. It was beautiful, until I realized I had to shovel my longish driveway by hand. I’m sore today from doing 90% of the shoveling yesterday, but a neighbor kindly finished off the last bit that connects my driveway with the street with a
23″ of Snow!: Snow Storm Jan 2016 Read More »
“I suppose there’s a time in practically every young boy’s life when he’s affected by that wonderful disease of puppy love.” When I first encountered Where the Red Fern Grows, I didn’t know of that joy. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Beenck, read the story aloud to us, and I was captivated by it. We
I longed for a dog: Where the Red Fern Grows Read More »
I spent most of twenties living in St. Louis. It was a great time of discovery about myself and about life. While I didn’t realize it at the time, most of the spiritual truths I build my life around today were developed during that time. More than anyplace I have ever lived, I felt a
15 Life Lessons Learned in St. Louis Read More »
