Recovery. Sobriety. Living Wise.
These are hard times to pay attention to politics. With all the anger, madness and discord in the air, it’s like our ship of state is sinking and we’re left to find our own lifeboats. It’s easy to think we’re the first people ever to have known times like these. Of course, we’re not. Think back to the time of the Great Depression when anger, … Continue reading Laughing Our Way Forward
Marsha and I like to walk over to Grand Avenue Park in Everett after dinner to watch the sun set over the Olympic Mountains. The scene is so picturesque, so grand, so serene, so beautiful. I remember as a boy watching the sunset from Discovery Park and feeling the same serenity. I lived away from the Pacific Northwest for 37 years and hardly a day … Continue reading What’s So Special About Beauty?
Charles Dickens’s novel, A Tale of Two Cities, opens with the classic description of the age leading up to the French Revolution. It speaks of a world in chaos and turmoil where contradictory pressures moved with equal and opposite force in a world with no North Star. The novel has been read and reread since it was first published in 1845, and as these same … Continue reading The Best of Times, The Worst of Times
Nothing characterized my early journey in faith more than doubt. From the first moment I picked up a Baltimore Catechism, skepticism set in. I was taught that every person enters the world with the table already set, answers to every question, truth to negate every falsehood, and clear, dark lines defining the good and the bad. The rule book for life was a time-tested document … Continue reading Saved by Doubt
“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. – is sure to be noticed.” Søren Kierkegaard The danger of losing one’s self grows during times that feel unfamiliar. Think of how … Continue reading Beyond the Great Regression