Note: I am submitting this for publication in the November/December issue of Neighbors of Batavia magazine. “Imagination is the organ that allows us to thrive on the cusp between danger and opportunity.” Lee Smolin in Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe Every morning we wake into a world fraught …
Steven Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, said it whimsically: few people on their deathbed wish they had spent more time at the office. But recent encounters leave me reflecting, considerably less whimsically, on what I might wish the moments just before I am called from this life. For ten …
As a result of nearly 10 years on a suicide/crisis hotline and 7 years with a teen anti-drug, anti-alcohol program called Operation Snowball, I am aware there are too many websites extolling the virtues of self-injury, eating disorders and even suicide; and not nearly enough offering a place of refuge and hope. Based on an …
Imagine for a moment you have returned to your childhood. In your infancy, at an age that precedes memory, you were given a blanket, which, in the intervening years, became your constant companion. You ran to find it every time the world came at you in a way far more complex than your innocence could …
Note: The following appeared in the January-February, 2013 issue of Neighbors of Batavia magazine. I have read many books in my life, and always viewed the time spent dwelling in the pages as no more than a conversation between me and the author. I have been wondering recently, however, how those moments are made …
Note: I beg your indulgence for this particularly long post. I have pulled it from a book I am trying to birth. It speaks to the confusion I face as I try to discern how humanity might find its way home. The more I learn, the more the explanations I grew up with are …
Many years ago, my heart was captured by stories—stories of authentic, caring community—shared with me by John McKnight of Northwestern University. They were so compelling, I asked John if he would introduce me to someone who was building community based on authentic care. Without hesitation he told me about Jackie Reed at the Westside …
I was a newly-minted MBA moving from an entry-level position to a job selling catalysts in the oil industry. The sales manager, Jim Trecek, arranged for me to spend a week under the tutelage of a renowned salesman in Toronto. His name was Pat McLaughlin. I arrived at the Toronto airport before Pat, and …
If I am open to the road less traveled, life lies in wait to take me on extraordinary journeys. A recent such escapade began in the most unlikely of places—with an obscure comment in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Isaacson mentions, in passing, a book Jobs reportedly reread every year. It wasn’t a …
As I reflect on the human journey, today is the eve of the most holy of holy days on the Christian calendar. I am informed, and confused, by words attributed to Jesus as he neared death: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”that is, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” In this moment, I …