“We can’t be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very...
Read more →For the writer, one of the greatest tools in Resistance’s toolbox is reticence, and its perpetual challenge to one’s vulnerability. Reticence is a fantastic tool for Resistance because it keeps the writer perpetually self-monitoring and questioning their work- and in many cases, by highlighting where a particular admission or proclamation or illustration might open...
Read more →The John Wick films are dark films. In film one, Wick, played by Keanu Reeves, is a hitman who retired from heavy dirty work because he found love. He met a woman who changed him, and gave him a reason to leave the raw, ugly underworld he had made a life in. Wick had...
Read more →I’m not the best person to reach, or to even talk to for very long, on the phone. I blame that a little on doing phone support at Intuit for a little over three years. I am also a fairly solitary person in the first place, and an introvert. I’m just not a big...
Read more →Every so often I find myself thinking about Claude Wheeler in Willa Cather’s novel, “One of Ours”. It happens mostly when my life seems to hit another prolonged lull, or plows full on into a series of roadblocks and whatever momentum I thought I had going is stamped out cold. I go back to...
Read more →The truth is, if you want to write, like in any other great venture in life, you have to take some risks. True, you aren’t high-wire walking over a 150 foot canyon. You aren’t riding your motorcycle in that metal sphere with two other bikers circling in the same tiny space. You aren’t letting...
Read more →It had started for me as a fantastic tribute to a hometown hero. Yesterday, on Sunday afternoon, Albuquerque threw a parade and then had a convocation on the city’s Civic Plaza to recognize Holly Holm, the seasoned Southpaw who gave invincible Ronda Rousey a shellacking in November’s UFC Bantamweight World Championship fight. Holly, as...
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Yesterday morning, I was grateful to play hooky from church and just enjoy the quiet of a Sunday morning at home. After my chores, I climbed into a chair at the bar table in the back of my kitchen, opened my journal, and then opened Mark Batterson’s book, “In A Pit With A Lion...
Read more →I, like many other people, find at times that I am at a loss on how to have something to say. I write this post today mostly for myself, because I need to hear it repeatedly, but I thought that it might be helpful for one or two of you as well. The mechanics...
Read more →It’s an odd thing to be at this point in life and yet regularly feel about 20 steps behind most other people. When I was in seminary, there was a guy that lived down the hall in the dorms from me and he was a nice dude, except he had a pretty prominent flaw...
Read more →Sometimes I like to stop and think about David- yeah, that guy in the Bible- because the Good Book says that God really loved David, because David was “a man after God’s own heart.” I try to figure out what that means, what David did to have a heart like God’s, because I’d like...
Read more →After finishing seminary, I had an opportunity to hop a plane and then ride trains all around western Europe for six weeks. One morning near the end of my journey, I was wandering a busy street in the center of Oxford, England, when I witnessed one of the most amazing and beautiful performances of...
Read more →Tonight I had an interesting experience, which was a good one, but one I’ve had a number of times before, and every time I have it, it tests me. I went to dance with our dance club friends at a local club for the bulk of the early evening, and then I went with...
Read more →I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a man over the last year. Sadly, I realize I really hadn’t given this much thought throughout the earlier years of my adult life, and suddenly, now that I am smack in mid-life, I’ve started to ask the question. You know, you get...
Read more →Today I did something that I rarely (if ever) do, and it was, well, hard. I told an old friend I was disappointed in him. The moment for the acknowledgement began innocently enough. I received an email from him which had a short blurb telling me about a friend he had known from childhood...
Read more →I was digging around in a few boxes in the garage tonight when I came across a thin hard-covered little book I hadn’t seen in a while. The little book was a journal from the summer of 1994. A travel notebook. Decorating the front cover of the notebook is an old map with hand-drawn...
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