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Hiking With My Dogs
Living in a rural valley in the high desert mountains of northern Nevada, my hikes in the mountains behind our house are solitary journeys – only me and my two dogs. So when I hear the sound of an all...
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On Being Back Home
There were 10 of these miraculous creatures fighting for their place among the four nectar feeders we have in the rose garden when I went out to do my office at 6 this morning. Only rarely do we see...
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My Dog Shadow
My dog Shadow is the most mellow being on the planet until I want him to do something that he doesn’t want to do. And then he plants all 4 on the ground and does not budge. This photo gives an idea of...
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March
It has been a longer, and colder than normal winter here in the high desert. And I see only the tips of these joyous harbingers of spring but the green tips are so very welcome, startling in their...
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My Friend Rachel’s Dog, Houdini Died In January
Remember the song from Annie, I Don’t Need Anything But You“: ‘Yesterday was plain awful and Daddy Warbucks sings back: ‘You can say that again’ and she does? It’s been 3 weeks tonight since I saw my...
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Lessons In Handling Stress
Lessons From My Dog Shadow In Handling Stress Only I and Shadow, the mostly black and gold mellow looking guy lying down on the floor next to the Doberman, witnessed Ally’s sudden death-it took less...
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Don’t Need Church To Pray?
Of course we don’t need to be in a church to pray, ‘I pray while I am hiking’, ‘while walking in the forest’, ‘while fishing'; I have heard many statements like these, in the past I would nod somewhat...
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Mindfulness and Anger
Anger: enmity, ire, irritation, rage…we all experience anger but for many of us, the detritus of the emotion piles up over minutes, days, weeks and years and then what? We need only to think about the...
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A Grief Revisited
Not infrequently, we associate grief with a particular date, room, or specific place. ‘He died on this day’, or ‘she passed at this place’, ‘in this room’ and the day, the place or the room is...
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Health is Boring
“Health is boring, disease is sexy.” I was talking to a CNN producer who was ‘vetting’ me to see if I’d be good fodder for a weekend interview. I’m a writer. Like most other writers, I want people to...
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Discipline and Habit Equal Happiness
During an interview about the essentials of health and happiness, the reporter was surprised when I added work to my list. We were nearing the end of the time allotted for the interview, therefore I...
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Why Should I Listen to You Again?
“Why should I listen to you?” was a rhetorical question asked and answered a few decades ago when I decided to stop watching the news. Initially, my reason was a simple one. I lived alone with my...
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Outcasts of Today
‘He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside of the camp.’ They would be outcasts, prohibited from the security and protection of the community. The command is from the reading in the Christian...
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Travel and Disorientation
After four months on the central coast of California, we are back home here in the high desert. I am acutely aware of the disorientation that travel causes for a host of reasons; fatigue, loss of...
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Food Nazi or Simply Concerned Citizen?
Friends and family who know me well have referred to me as a food Nazi either sotto voce, tongue-in-cheek, or jokingly. And the sobriquet (love that word and only rarely get to use it) is fitting for...
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The Culture of Lent
Ordinarily, I don’t consider culture and Lent in the same phrase but in determining what to call my thoughts and ideas about Abraham, Moses, The Transfiguration and metanoia, I realized how fitting is...
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Trust and Faith-Aren’t They The Same Thing?
Can we have trust in a person, event or object without faith? These two concepts are most commonly used in the religious context when we are speaking, thinking and writing about them; almost always we...
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Deadlines and Mind Games
Strange word, deadline: Sounds somber even grim. Of late, I’ve been thinking about goals, targets and yes, deadlines because of the push to complete my latest book. Mostly because those who know I...
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The Real Spiritual Battle
We’re approaching Holy Week, the days of silence, reflection and accounting we’re given by the Christian liturgy each year to reply to the question: How did I do during these forty days? Will there be...
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Joy and Sorrow: Essential Paradox
Long before I came back to the church, during those years in which I considered myself an atheist, I discovered the writings of Kahil Gibran (only after I joined the Catholic Church did I learn that...
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