Recovery. Sobriety. Living Wise.
“What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumpled swiftly into the dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh” ~ Agnes Replier How my life has been shaped by humor. And to think how close I came to losing laughter forever. As a kid our home was filled with laughter. My dad was a laugh factory and his … Continue reading How I Found My Humor
Thirty years and a day. I celebrated my thirtieth year of sobriety last year, and today I have one more day. I was raised Southern Baptist. No one in my family drank. I was an honor student. I went to Divinity School and became an ordained minister. I worked with the Ecumenical Institute of Chicago on an inner city reformulation project and trained church leaders … Continue reading Thirty Years and a Day (by Herman)
I found a story that makes this point so nicely. A man found a cocoon made by a caterpillar. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched for several hours as the new butterfly struggled to force its body through the tiny hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and … Continue reading When Struggle is a Good Thing
“The real voyage of discovering consists not in seeking new landscapes but having new eyes – Marcel Proust Discovery can be a strange and mystifying endeavor. That which we hope to discover is often not what we actually come to discover. I can think of three illustrations in history that illustrate this truth. Christopher Columbus was commissioned to … Continue reading The Gift of Ignorance
“Life is full of obstacle illusions” ~ Grant Frazier At a reunion involving a couple of my dearest friends, my friend Neil offered the opinion that a parent can do no better than to instill in a child the characteristic of GRITTINESS. My friends and I go back nearly 50 years. We shared intense times doing really hard work on the west side of … Continue reading What is Your Grit Quotient?