The center of my world is my wife and my two sons. The pearl in my world. Outside my family, my world is that I make my living, and most of theirs, by dealing with conflict, whether helping people fight through it, cope with it, or settle it peacefully. I internalize a lot of it. Always have. And I’ve always done it. I have, as long as I can remember, been the person sitting over to the side of the crowd, welcoming the person who was pushed out. Probably the first time I full

50 year birthday. Thanksgiving. Christmas Season. One son in college and another with his first car. It has all piled up on me. As I was driving to meet a couple of new clients this morning, my mind was flooded with memories. It was like watching an old 8mm film of my life, projected onto a white bed sheet hung from the mantle in the living room, only in my head, distracting me from the rainy day outside my jeep. I saw the mobile home on the southeast side of Monroe Louisiana

A chrysalis is the shell, or bag – the container – in which a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. The idea of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly is amazing and inspiring to any elementary school student, but sadly, many adults never look at this metamorphosis from a more mature perspective. A Butterfly undergoes its metamorphosis in a chrysalis. A moth does the same in a cocoon. A phoenix does something similar in its own ashes. Here’s the cool part: for all of a caterpillar’s l

This could be titled Phlegm 3, but I got tired of the nasty connotations of that word. As I have sat at home today, thinking, praying, pondering, and being generally disgusted at how little I can do, I had these thoughts, mostly as a result of my time in the hospital. If I am physically unable to carry on a conversation or my hand is shaking when I try to hold the phone to answer a call, it is ok not to take said call. Its probably not that important anyway. I MUST start my d

In my last entry, I referred to my present health and career crisis as a storm. I considered and then wrote about how it built up and finally blew up. In explaining this to my present clients, I even drew a picture of a mushroom cloud as an illustration of my job situation. 44 The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. 5 Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his god . . . Since then, I

I am a pretty phlegmy, or phlegmatic, guy. I have been for some time. Funny how the two definitions of this word have collided in my microcosm here lately. I guess it was when I was in Washington DC recently that I first noticed that I was breathing harder – struggling for air more – than usual. I thought it was just the heat and the excessive walking. When I was in DC I was attending an International Round Table on Religious Freedom and walking, in a suit and tie, from place

I don’t always learn by teaching. Sometimes, I learn by conjuring up some humility, reminding myself that I’m not an expert in – well – anything, and finding someone who IS, and then submitting to their instruction. On this point, for the past several years I have been studying mediation and more specifically, conciliation, methods. This is done in a quest to be able to help people who are tangled up in the chains of conflict to escape with their valued relationships in tact.

A home is a wonderful thing. A family is even better. Armistice, when needed, is from God Himself. Put the three  together and you have a miracle that many people never experience and that many who experience it take for granted. The Washingtons had hit a sweet spot in life.  Reagan was rising early each morning with a spring in his step, Rosy was feeling empowered and enthusiastic about both work and family, Liberty was energized by her parents’ positivity and Unity was in a

I’m ok with who I am. It has taken quite some time to get here, but I’m good with me. And as for the people who aren’t, well, I don’t really care. On the other hand, may they have ethics complaints filed against them. But not by me, because it’s not worth my time. I’ve learned a lot about myself in the past few years. I’ve learned that I like macchiato. It took a trip to Ethiopia to figure that out. It may not be the most masculine coffee around but I don’t care, because I li

This is the root of politicians and pundits feeding the public “alternative facts,” “fake news,” and “revisionist history.” When people choose not to see, they have little choice but not to show, not to explain, not to admit, etc., lest they see and are therefore seen. Selective invisibility is one of the most effective tools of less than forthright clergy, politicos, and, by the way, terrorists. Who’s to say what’s real and what’s fabricated among these invisible things we t

How many people have either wondered if they were, or wished they were, or maybe wished they were not, invisible, at one point or another? That one girl or guy that doesn’t seem to know you exist; that car that pulls into your lane as though you weren’t in it; or that gathering where you’re standing alone in the middle of the room and no one seems to notice when you finally leave. Or maybe you wished you were invisible when you spilled the tomato sauce down your clean white s

So is it a good thing or a bad thing? I think it’s healthy but no more fun than a shot in the buttocks for a ten year old. Children seem to enjoy their illusions: Santa brings them presents at Christmas, a Bunny brings candy at Easter, a Fairy exchanges money for baby teeth (a little creepy when said that way), a huge ape with big feet lives in the woods, et cetera. Part of maturing is releasing these fanciful myths in favor of reality, but it seems to me that after releasing

opening my eyes in the morning is often like the elevator doors opening after a solo ride from the top floor of the sears tower down to the fifth floor i’ve been comfortable for some time, enjoying a not-too-hot not-too-cold pleasant temperature and some instrumental music in dim lighting and solitude and then the doors open and in comes a stranger, a thought, separating the space of the elevator in two and pushing me into my half just before the doors close, or i hit snooze,

(This is #11 and the final installment in a series. Find 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10 by clicking on the numbers. It’s ok – they’re mostly short.) By the way, to be fair, it’s not just Christians who do it. I’m just more willing to point the proverbial finger at my own kind than others, for the sake of avoiding hypocrisy. But everyone from the LGBTQ community to the Islam community seems to do it. We all want respect and we all want others to see the truth of our ways. But

(This is #6 in a series. Find 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5 by clicking on the numbers.) Forced respect isn’t respect at all.            Forced respect leads to resentment. Forced love isn’t love in the least.            Forced love leads to a bitter loathing. Forced allegiance is far from loyalty.      Forced allegiance causes rebellion. Forced religion is bad faith.                      Forced religion stifles honest faith. When I refer to “forced” religion or faith, I’m not referring to

There are so many types of “forcing it.” I have addressed several already, in the precursors to this post: 1, 2, 3, and 4. I have suggested that as a general rule, subject to some exceptions of course, we should focus our attention on ourselves when forcing things (i.e. self-discipline) and we should not impose our wills and standards on others – “forcing it” on those unwilling. I attempted to show that God Himself set the example on this point, subject to some exceptions, an

God is the inventor of free will.  He doesn’t force man to love Him, or obey Him, or respect Him. He could, but He doesn’t. Because He desires sincere devotion as opposed to forced submission. He knows that Forced respect isn’t respect at all; Forced love isn’t love in the least; Forced allegiance is a far cry from loyalty, and Forced religion is bad faith. So He doesn’t force it. To make the point, let’s look at some of His history: Why would He place the first man and woman

My last post, “Don’t force it,” created a mildly heated discussion on my facebook page. Sometimes that happens. The thing is, most people seem to agree that the players have a right to protest – the dissonance comes when the discussion moves to when and where the protest should happen. Under the caselaw interpreting our U.S. Constitution, speech as well as other basic freedoms may be regulated by time, place and manner, but that’s not even the point I was, and am, going for.

Right, then. Obviously, by the title, this is installment 4 in a series of some unspecified number of posts.  Ironic maybe that I’m not naming the denominator in my own fractions, but whatever. I would suggest reading 1, 2, & 3 in order to help this one make more sense. What if we look at less appealing common denominators? It’s not so hard or even offensive to compare ourselves to rockstars, writers, or revolutionaries, but what if we start comparing the revolutionaries to t

Unless you’re fairly young, haven’t studied much history at all, or haven’t cared enough about it to remember when you did hear the stories, you’ve heard of Selma, Alabama. Sadly, it is not famous so much as infamous, like Salem, Massachusetts – its anagram. The common denominator between the two is fierce bravery met with ignorant cruelty. Selma is where Bloody Sunday happened on March 7, 1965, and last Sunday I had the pleasure of attending Brown’s Chapel AME Church, where