thoughts on life

Dialogue is a word that has been rendered almost meaningless by having so many meanings to so many people. Politicians have misappropriated the word and nearly destroyed its usefulness. But…

A local Lutheran church, which is considered one of the more progressive faiths in this town and country, has an astounding declaration on its home page.

“Ignorance is not lack of knowledge but of self-knowing.” I read that provocative statement today, and it prompted these questions: What is self-knowing? What is the difference between self-knowing and…

Today is World Lion Day. The big-money pleasure killing of a Zimbabwean lion named Cecil is being portrayed in the New York Times as humans vs. nature, romanticism vs. reality.…

When I was in junior high school, bored classmates and I would hold breath-holding contests. Since I could hold my breath for 4 minutes, I usually won. Natalia Molchanova, the greatest freediver in history who died last Sunday in a “fun” dive off the coast of Spain, could hold her breath for 9 minutes!

It is the lie that began the long decline to America’s loss of its soul. The people were fed, and still swallow, the propaganda that began 70 years ago, after…

Did indigenous people, living before the Agricultural Revolution, face the same existential alienation from the earth that we do in the scientific-computer age?

To contact the numinous, one has to forget experiences, not accumulate them. And peak religious experiences are the most important experiences to forget.