Meditations

It’s late morning, a typically hot summer morning inland in California. But a fine breeze blows through the brown hills, and it takes the edge off the heat, making the…

Without a flexible view of human nature, no claim can be made to universality. Is the very notion of universal human values a Western construct and conceit? Is human nature…

Having only encountered the harmless garter snake growing up in Michigan, I held a fear and fascination for rattlesnakes when I left the insular peninsular for California at 20. On…

Over the last 20 years, I’ve often been gripped by the existential question: How does this unbelievably dysfunctional culture and society continue to function, much less do as well as…

There is a canyon beyond town where, if you go with a humble heart and silent mind, you can feel the presence of indigenous peoples who experienced the sacredness of…

About a year after 9.11, I met an octogenarian German fellow in the parkland that wends along the creek and defines this bucolic northern California town. ‘How old were you…

Instead of scaring up a couple of ducks as I ride down the dirt path to the creek, I surprise a man standing in the middle of the stream. He…

Many of the movies that Hollywood has churned out in the last 20 years are based on the premise that evil is interesting while good is boring. That’s hard to…