Reason And Justice

John of the Cross is recorded in The Sayings of Light and Love to have said: Blessed are they who, setting aside their own pleasure and inclination, consider things according to reason and justice before doing them. In The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross / translated by Kavanaugh and Rodriguez. p. 89. …

Different Worlds, Different Views

The following is from a book titled Another Culture/Another World by Father Michael Oleksa. Association of Alaska School Boards, 2005. Different cultures see the world differently. Different cultures structure, understand and play the game of life differently. These are not differences of right and wrong, good or bad, practical or impractical. They are just different …

Mister, My Mom Fainted

In May 1966 in the middle of beautiful weather and in a beautiful Sacramento neighborhood, I walked up to the ambulance guy and said, “Mister, my mom fainted.” I had just gotten home from school. Getting home was always a dangerous affair. There were various gangs vying for turf in our neighborhood. This was before …

A Great Tax Break!

Let me share about my joy at the tax preparers office this morning. We always wait until about now to do our taxes. I don’t know why. It’s just “tradition.” But this year we were almost eager to get them done. Because, don’t you see, we, that is, those of us solidly in the middle …

High School Class Reunion

With mixed feelings I’ve decided not to attend my high school reunion. I haven’t attended any of them yet. This is one of the major ones. You know, the 5 or 10 or 25 or 40 or 50. I am curious about a couple of people but not curious enough to face the whole group …

The Trash Barrel

A couple of years ago while working at the library there was a commotion out the west side of the building. There are huge windows in the library looking out that way. By the time I got out of my office and over to the windows, there was a mix of at least a dozen …

Hunter @ Disneyland

Rodeo? Let’s Pray!

In 1988 I was a minister in a medium sized church in Iowa. Every early September there was a rodeo parade and a rodeo in town, even to the present. The medium sized church is important because the church was one of the oldest in town and was one of four on the town square. …

A Bouquet of Roses

In January of 1988 there was a good amount of snow on the ground. The temperatures were hovering around zero. Ft. Madison, Iowa, was pretty much iced in. I was finished. PTSD, anxiety, depression, sadness, a sense of failure were constant companions. I can feel that day as if it were just a brief, few …

Confessions of a Secret Mystic

For the past 20 years I have been an academic. I have worked with academics. I have thought like an academic. I’ve spent hours upon hours assisting others in their academic work. It’s how I made my living. But before that I was a pastor/minister for 18 years. And, in between, I spent 5 years …