Category Archives: Meaning Making

Our Message to the Universe

[This post includes two short videos best experienced from the Just a Thought website. Please click the link above.] Voyager1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5,1977. Its mission was to gather information about our solar system and send a message to extraterrestrials who might come in contact with the spacecraft. President Jimmy Carter sent along this message: “This is a present … Continue reading Our Message to the Universe »

A Thought on Prayer (by Joe N.)

The dogwood tree outside my bedroom window is blossoming. When I open the drapes in the morning and look out from my second-story window, I see hundreds of small white flowers. I first noticed the buds opening on Easter morning, and my first thought was: Praise the Lord, Christ has risen. I sensed what the Jesuit poet Gerald Manley Hopkins sensed when he wrote: The … Continue reading A Thought on Prayer (by Joe N.) »

Smooth Seas Do Not Make Skilled Sailors

Friends, I’d like to dedicate this post to one of the most skilled sailors I know: my cousin, Dennis Parker, the elder of the Moriarty clan, a friend to many, and my first hero.   In the opening act of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, the King appears in a forest, disguised and carrying a prayer book. Thinking he is alone, he speaks aloud while trying to … Continue reading Smooth Seas Do Not Make Skilled Sailors »

Live a Good Life. Now.

[This post includes a short video best experienced from the Just a Thought website. Please click the link above.] “Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.” ~ Emily Dickinson    I’ve reached an age where I’m frequently hearing of an old friend boarding the carriage bound for eternity. There … Continue reading Live a Good Life. Now. »

The Flutter of Happiness

“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” ― Martha Washington And yet in places like Gaza and Ukraine and the Sudan it’s impossible to believe that anyone could find happiness in such harsh, brutal and terrifying circumstances. But miraculously, people do. And it is one of the great miracles of life.   We see it … Continue reading The Flutter of Happiness »