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Blessings & Gratitude on Christmas Day
Gratitude lifts our eyes off the things we lack so we might see the blessings we possess. Max Lucado Christmas is a special time. People’s traditions vary but for many it’s a time of family and friendships, gifts and celebration and worship. For many it’s also a time to take stock and enjoy a moment…
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My Cancer Jouney Has Begun
Well I’m finally off on my journey. The train has left the station. Getting to this point required that I research this strange land, learn the language, plan my route and book my tickets. As I write this I’ve finished the first week. I started radiation last Monday and will continue every weekday afternoon for…
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To Be Transgender is to Be Human
Updated with a new Afterword. To be nobody but myself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me somebody else — means to fight the hardest battle any human can fight, and never stop fighting. E. E. Cummings Actor Elliot Page did an interview last spring with Oprah…
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Courting Tragedy: Reflecting on the Rittenhouse & Arbery Trials
I’ve spent a awful lot of time watching Court TV this month with the Kyle Rittenhouse trial in Wisconsin and the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial in Georgia. I can’t immediately recall two trials of this magnitude coming back to back like this, nor situations touching simultaneously on so many social, legal and political issues —…
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Mindfulness, Happiness & ‘RAIN’
“Don’t fret. Everything’s going to be OK.” That’s a helpful advice for someone, isn’t it? Yeah, sometimes. But sometimes not. I read a commentary last week in the Wall Street Journal about “toxic positivity.” Elizabeth Bernstein wrote that “forcing ourselves or others to always be positive can be harmful to our well-being and our relationships.”…
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Beautiful Holden Arboretum
Two years ago David and I spent a truly delightful day at Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, Ohio, east of Cleveland. It was a beautiful, clear and crisp Sunday afternoon in October. I wasn’t retired yet and was swamped in work, so I never compiled and posted this blog entry. Better late than never! If you…
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Nightmare on Glasgow Street
Glasgow, Climate Change & Capitalism: A true Halloween horror. An article in today’s New York Times drives home the depth of the climate change crisis. It’s not that we can’t deal with it — yet — but there’s little chance we will be. Certainly not in time to avoid catastrophic consequences that will fall especially hard on…
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Carl Sagan on Mindfulness & Gratitude
Carl Sagan, the preeminent scientist behind the landmark PBS Cosmos series that aired in 1980, was interviewed by Charlie Rose a few months before his death in 1996. I watched it on YouTube over the weekend. It was his last TV interview. Sagan died of complications from myelodysplasia. He was promoting his latest book, The…
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When Life Gives You Lemons… My Journey Meets Cancer
My diagnosis came on September 1st: Stage 2 Prostate Cancer. Before I go any further, let me assure friends and extended family hearing for the first time that I’m in no immediate danger. To the best of our knowledge the cancer is contained and has not spread. Doctors believe we’ve found it early enough that…