BREXIT! TRUMP! ISIS! The headlines are enough to make you queasy these days, yet if you’re like me, you find yourself reading the stories, trying to make sense of things that are in large part nonsensical. But with the weekend here, it’s time to forget about politics, our jobs and anything else that might cause us stress, and focus on what really matters in life: family, friends and a good grilled chicken sandwich. That’s why I’ve made the following pledge... Read more
Imagine graduating from one of the top religious schools in the country, entering the ministry, and after a few years deciding the job isn’t right for you. You find yourself troubled by public prayer, the act of communion, and most of all by the formality and stiffness of the church service itself. Well, if you’re 29-year old Ralph Waldo Emerson, you quit your job as a minister at a Unitarian church and chart a new course. You start writing essays... Read more
Each June, The New York Times prints excerpts of about 20 of the top graduation commencement speeches from around the country. The speeches come from actors and athletes, politicians and businesspeople, and each year I faithfully read them, looking for nuggets of inspiration or wisdom. This year, as in years past, I found several that stand out. Here are excerpts from my favorite 2016 commencement speeches, or the best of the best. Each one offers an insight that resonates with... Read more
I first met John Gray in early-2014. He was a reader of this column and we began a regular exchange of ideas via e-mail. I soon found myself collecting some of his choicest sayings and, to his great enjoyment, wrote a story about him titled Musings on God and Life from an 85-Year Old Expat Living in France. Over the past several months, his once lengthy e-mails grew shorter, his responses more clipped. He had been in the hospital, was... Read more
There is a fairly obscure book by the name of The Encounter, Amazon Beaming in which the writer Petru Popescu tells the story of his good friend, National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre, and how he made contact with the elusive Mayoruna tribe in the deepest jungles of Brazil. In 1969, McIntyre was on assignment in the Amazon’s Javari Valley when he was separated from his companions and stumbled into the Mayoruna. Known as the “cat people”, they believe they’re descended... Read more
Norman Vincent Peale may be best known as the author of The Power of Positive Thinking. First published in 1952, the book went on to sell 5 million copies and is still a Top-10 “religion & spirituality” book at Amazon today. It was one of 41 books Peale wrote during a distinguished life that included receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the US, in 1984. More than a writer, Peale was also an ordained minister.... Read more
There was a recent story in the NY Times about a family in my home state of New Jersey that had just won the $429.6 million Powerball jackpot—and what made it interesting is the reason they believed they had won. Pearlie Mae Smith and her 7 adult children did not normally play the lottery. But on this particular day they decided to pool their money and buy a few tickets. It wasn’t the usual array of birth and anniversary dates... Read more
In a few weeks I will be writing about the brand new book from Thomas Moore, a modern-day translation of one of the New Testament gospels, The Book of Matthew. But as I did a little research on that book, I was reminded of Moore’s previous release, the groundbreaking A Religion of One’s Own. If you are one of the many who consider themselves “spiritual but not religious”, this book is a must-read as it lays out a blueprint by... Read more
I was recently reading one of my favorite life philosophy books, when author John Templeton asked a question that stopped me in my tracks: Was the Earth a better place because you were born? Wow, that’s a tough ask, isn’t it? For some context, Templeton credits this line to an old American Indian myth. When a tribe member made the journey to “the new life” (or what we call death), he was met by a figure known as “the Great... Read more
His name is Mike and I’ve known him for over a decade. While we work for the same company, we’re now in different offices and I hadn’t seen him for a while. So it was through the grapevine that, about six months ago, I learned Mike has Stage 4 cancer. I visited his office recently and had the chance to sit down and talk with him. Mike still goes to work every day. Some mornings he has chemo and is... Read more
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