I like making mistakes. Okay, that’s a bald-faced lie. I should say instead that I like learning from my mistakes. While the mistakes can be painful, time-consuming, and mortifying, they allow learning from them. What do I learn from my own mistakes and others? Character. Read more
Have you ever heard that small inner voice say, “Who do you think you are? You can’t do this! Why did you ever think you were one of the special people who could do this?” I think we all have. But what about someone who has a real disadvantage? Say someone who has been diagnosed with ADHD, or is Bipolar, or Manic-Depressive? Go one further—someone who has lost a limb or an integral organ. Surely they have a right and a reason to believe that inner voice? Read more
It sounds like an odd question but it’s one I’ve been tossing around for a while. It’s astounding how many truly unhappy people there are in America, even though we are quite literally in the richest, and most technologically advanced country in the world. I hear complaining and kvetching daily over the most inane and quite honestly laughable things. In the midst of these thoughts, I remembered a friend of mine while having a bowl of Wanton soup. Read more
Have you ever heard, “I'm sorry, but I’m not getting what I need from you.” Being in a church relationship is kind of like a dating relationship. Eventually, you will hear it from someone leaving your church. But the question is, did they ever tell anyone what their expectations of the relationship were? Read more
When we are baptized into Christianity, each of us takes on the mantle of becoming a “Priest, Prophet, and King.” But what does this mean to us, and how does it affect our lives? What do we do with this? Is it only for men? Read more
We recently returned to an event in San Francisco, CA, where I sang on the San Francisco Opera stage. Now, for many, that would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. But I’d sung on that site several times before when I was singing for a living. Don’t get me wrong; it’s always a thrill to sing on one of the world's greatest stages, but as Huey Lewis sang so aptly, “Better remember, lightning never strikes twice.” I’m not saying the trip was a let down. Not at all. But you can’t expect to go back like nothing has changed. Read more
Many years ago, before my wife and I met, when a date would come to the door to pick her up, they would be met at the door by her brother. He would always be mid-cleaning his favorite shotgun and just happen to answer the door with it still in his hand. All six-foot-six of him would lean down to the face of the prospective date and ask, “What are your intentions with my little sister?” Read more
We’re too busy to have faith. It’s a fact. Our days start earlier and earlier, and we work until the night before we think about going to sleep. We are surrounded by machines that are supposed to make our lives easier, yet somehow, we work more. We have become project-driven and don’t have a big-picture vision. So, was it simpler a hundred, a thousand, two thousand years ago? Read more
For some incomprehensible reason, I woke the other morning with “For the Beauty of the Earth...” running through my mind. No matter what I did, what I was thinking about, what I was watching or doing, it was constantly in the background. Then it dawned on me. I was watching some of the events a few days earlier commemorating the anniversary of D-Day. Read more
When I was a much younger man, I used to pop in my eight track tape (I only had one at the time), roll down the windows of my 64 Chevy Impala, and crank up the volume to song number four—“Calypso.” I’ve always been a sucker for a good seafaring tune or shanty. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” and “Come Sail Away,” and today “Soon May the Wellerman Come” are some favorites that will make me stop, smile, and slap my thigh with the beat. Read more
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